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THE COMPLETE 

POETICAL WORKS OF 

HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW 




BOSTON AND NEW YORK 

HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 

($be fiitotneibe pre?? Cambribge 



PS 0,2.56 

,Fzz. 



COPYRIGHT, 1863, 1865, 1866, 1867, 1868, 1S69, 1871, 1872, 1873, 1874, 1875, 1876, 1878, 1879, AND l88o, 
BY HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW 

copyright, 1882, 1883, lS86 » lS 9 I > l8 94» l8 9 6 » l8 99. l 9°°* ig°h i9° 2 > 1 9°3> I 9<A l 9°&> J 9"» I 9 I 3» »9*4» 

1915, 1916, 1917, AND 1920, BY ERNEST W. LONGFELLOW 

COPYRIGHT, 1882, 1SS3, 18S6, AND 1S93, BY HOUGHTON MIFFLIN & CO. 

COPYRIGHT, I922, BY ALICE M. LONGFELLOW 

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 



3l I 1 3 c I 



~~p 



fc3 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 



Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was born in Portland, Maine, February 27, 
1807. He was a classmate of Hawthorne at Bowdoin College, graduating there in 
the class of 1825. He began the study of law in the office of his father, Hon. 
Stephen Longfellow ; but receiving shortly the appointment of professor of modern 
languages at Bowdoin, he devoted himself after that to literature, and to teaching 
in connection with literature. Before beginning his work at Bowdoin he increased 
his qualifications by travel and study in Europe, where he stayed three years. 
Upon his return he gave his lectures on modern languages and literature at the 
college, and wrote occasionally for the North American Review and other periodi- 
cals. The first volume which he published was an Essay on the Moral and De- 
votional Poetry of Spain, accompanied by translations from Spanish verse. This 
was issued in 1833, but has not been kept in print as a separate work. It appears 
as a chapter in Outre-Mer, a reflection of his European life and travel, the first of 
his prose writings. In 1835 he was invited to succeed Mr. George Ticknor as pro- 
fessor of modern languages and literature at Harvard College, and again went to 
Europe for preparatory study, giving especial attention to Switzerland and the 
Scandinavian countries. He held his professorship until 1854, and continued to 
live in Cambridge until his death, March 24, 1882, occupying a house known from 
a former occupant as the Craigie house, and also as Washington's headquarters, 
that general having so used it while organizing the army that held Boston in siege 
at the beginning of the Revolution. Everett, Sparks, and Worcester the lexico- 
grapher at one time or another lived in this house, and here Longfellow wrote 
most of his works. 

In 1839 appeared Hyperion, a Pom.ance, which, with more narrative form than 
Outre-Mer, like that gave the results of a poet's entrance into the riches of the 
Old World life. In the same year was published Voices of the 1 Night, a little 
volume containing chiefly poems and translations which had been printed sepa- 
rately in periodicals. The Psalm of Life, perhaps the best known of Longfellow's 
short poems, was in this volume, and here, too, were The Beleaguered City and 
Footsteps of Angels. Ballads and other Poems and Poems on Slavery appeared 
in 1842 ; The Spanish Student, a play in three acts, in 1843 ; The Belfry of 
Bruges and other Poems in 1846 ; Evangeline in 1847 ; Kavanagh, a Tale, in 
prose, in 1849. Besides the various volumes comprising short poems, the list of 
Mr. Longfellow's works includes The Golden Legend, The Song of Hiawatha, 
The Courtship of Miles Standish, Tales of a Wayside Inn, The New England 
Tragedies, and a translation of Dante's Divina Commedia. Mr. Longfellow's 
literary life began in his college days, and he wrote poems almost to the day of. 



iv BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 



his death. A classification of his poems and longer works would be an interesting 
task, and would help to disclose the wide range of his sympathy and taste ; a col- 
lection of the metres which he used would show the versatility of his art, and sim- 
ilar studies would lead one to discover the many countries and ages to which he 
went for subjects. It would not be difficult to gather from the volume of Long- 
fellow's poems hints of personal experience, that biography of the heart which is 
of more worth to us than any record, however full, of external change and ad- 
venture. Such hints may be found, for example, in the early lines To the River 
Charles, which may be compared with the much later Three Friends of Mine, 
rv, v ; in A Gleam of Sunshine, To a Child, The Day is Done, The Fire of 
Driftwood, Resignation, The Open Windoiu, The Ladder of St. Augustine, My 
Lost Youth, The Children's Hour, Weariness, and other poems ; not that we are 
to take all sentiments and statements made in the first person as the poet's, for 
often the poem is so far dramatic that the poet is assuming a character not neces- 
sarily his own ; but the recurrence of certain strains, joined with personal allusions, 
Mps one to penetrate the slight veil with which the poet, here as elsewhere, half 
conceals and half reveals himself. The friendly associations of the poet may also 
be discovered in several poems directly addressed to persons or distinctively allud- 
ing to them, and the reader will find it pleasant to construct the companionship of 
the poet out of such poems as The Herons of Elmwood, To William E. Channing, 
The Fiftieth Birthday of Agassiz, To Charles Sumner, the Prelude to Tales 
of a Wayside Inn, and Hawthorne. The standard Life of Longfellow is the one 
written by his brother, Rev. Samuel Longfellow, in three volumes, and there is 
also an excellent single volume Life, by T. W. Higginson, in American Men of 
Letters, another single volume Life by F. H. Underwood, and a volume containing 
his chief autobiographical poems with a sketch of his life by Charles Eliot Norton. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS 



VOICES OF THE NIGHT. 

Prelude ..... 

Hymn to the Night 

A Psalm op Life 

The Reaper and the Flowers 

The Light of Stars 

Footsteps of Angels 

Flowers ..... 

The Beleaguered City 

Midnight Mass for the Dying Year 

EARLIER POEMS. 

An April Day .... 

Autumn ..... 
Woods in Winter 
Hymn of the Moravian Nuns of 

Bethlehem .... 
Sunrise on the Hills . 
The Spirit of Poetry 
Burial of the Minnisink 
L'Envoi 

BALLADS AND OTHER POEMS. 

The Skeleton in Armor 

The Wreck of the Hesperus . 

The Village Blacksmith 

Endymion 

It is not always May . 
The Rainy Day .... 
God's-Acre .... 
To the River Charles 
Blind Bartimeus . 
The Goblet of Life . 
Maidenhood .... 
Excelsior ..... 



POEMS ON SLAVERY. 

To William E. Channing 

The Slave's Dream 

The Good Part, that shall not be 

taken away .... 
The Slave in the Dismal Swamp 
The Slave singing at Midnight , 
The Witnesses . ... 
The Quadroon Girl 
The Warning .... 



THE 



SPANISH STUDENT . 

BRUGES 



THE BELFRY OF 
OTHER POEMS. 

Carillon 

The Belfry of Bruges 
A Gleam of Sunshine 
The Arsenal at Springfield 
Nuremberg . . ' . 
The Norman Baron 



AND 



PAGB 

Rain in Summer . . . . .59 

To a Child 60 

The Occultation of Orion . . 62 

The Bridge 63 

To the Driving Cloud . . .64 
Songs. 

The Day is done ... 64 
Afternoon in February . . 65 
To an Old Danish Song-Book 65 
Walter von der Vogelweid . 66 
Drinking Song ... 67 

The Old Clock on the Stairs 67 
The Arrow and the Song . 68 
Sonnets. 

Mezzo Cam m in . . 3 .68 
The Evening Star . . 69 

Autumn . . . . .69 

Dante 69 

Curfew 69 

EVANGELINE: A TALE OF ACADIE. 

Evangeline . . . . .71 



THE SEASIDE AND THE FIRESIDE. 

Dedication . 

By the Seaside 

The Building of the Ship . 

Seaweed 

Chrysaor ..... 

The Secret of the Sea . 

Twilight ..... 

Sir Humphrey Gilbert 

The Lighthouse 

The Fire of Drift-Wood . 
By the Fireside. 

Resignation .... 

The Builders . 

Sand of the Desert in an Hour- 
glass .... 

The Open Window 

King Witlaf's Drinking-Horn 

Gaspar Becerra . . . . 

Pegasus in Pound . 

Tegner's Drapa . . . . 

Sonnet, on Mrs. Kemble's Read- 
ings from Shakespeare . 

The Singers . . . . 

Suspiria ..... 

Hymn for my Brother's Ordi- 



THE SONG OF HIAWATHA. 
Introduction 
I. The Peace-Pipe . 
II. The Four Winds . 
III. Hiawatha's Childhood 



99 

99 
103 
104 
104 
105 
105 
106 
106 

107 

108 

108 
109 
110 
110 
110 
111 

112 

112 
113 



113 
115 
116 
llfi 



CONTENTS 







PAGE 






PAGE 


IV. 


Hiawatha and Mudjekeewis . 


121 


Flight the 


Second. 




V. 


Hiawatha's Fasting . 


124 


The Children's Hour 


200 


VI. 


Hiawatha's Friends 


127 


Enceladus .... 


201 


VII. 


Hiawatha's Sailing . 


128 


The Cumberland 


201 


VIII. 


Hiawatha's Fishing 


130 


Snow-Flakes .... 


202 


IX. 


Hiawatha and the Pearl- 




A Day of Sunshine . , «• 


202 




Feather . 


132 


Something left undone 


203 


X. 


Hiawatha's Wooing 


135 


Weariness .... 


203 


XI. 


Hiawatha's Wedding-Feast 


137 








XII. 


The Son of the Evening Star 


139 


TALES OF A WAY 




XIII. 


Blessing the Cornfields 


143 


Part First. 






XIV. 


Picture- Writing 


145 


Prelude 




204 


XV. 


Hiawatha's Lamentation 


147 


The Landlord's Tale: Paul Re- 




XVI. 


Pau-Puk-Keewis 


149 


vere's Ride 


207 


XVII. 


The Hunting of Pau-Puk- 




Interlude 




209 




Keewis ..... 


151 


The Student's Tale: The Fal- 




XVIII. 


The Death of Kwasind . 


155 


con 


of Ser Federigo . 


209 


XIX. 


The Ghosts .... 


156 


Interlude 




213 


XX. 


The Famine . 


158 


The Spanish Jew's Tale: The 




XXI. 


The White Man's Foot 


160 


Legend of Rabbi Ben Levi . 


214 


XXII. 


Hiawatha's Departure 


162 


Interlude 




214 


THE COURTSHIP OF MILES STANDISH. 


The Sicilian's Tale: King Rob- 
ert of Sicily 


215 


I. 


Miles Standish 


165 


Interlude 




218 


II. 


Love and Friendship 


166 


The Musician's Tale: The Saga 




III. 


The Lover's Errand 


168 


of King Olaf 




IV. 


John Alden 


171 


I. 


The Challenge of Thor 


218 


V. 


The Sailing of the Mayflower 


174 


II. 


King Olaf's Return . 


219 


VI. 


Priscilla . . . . . 


177 


III. 


Thora of Rimol 


220 


VII. 


The March of Miles Standish 


178 


IV. 


Queen Sigrid the 




VIII. 


The Spinning-Wheel . 


180 




Haughty 


220 


IX. 


The Wedding-Day . 


182 


V. 


The Skerry of Shrieks 


221 








VI. 


The Wraith of Odin 


222 


BIRDS 


OF PASSAGE. 




VII. 


Iron-Beard 


223 


Flight the First. 




VIII. 


Gudrun . 


224 




Birds of Passage 


184 


IX. 


Thangbrand the Priest 


225 




Prometheus, or the Poet's 


X. 


Raud the Strong 


226 




Forethought . 


185 


XL 


Bishop Sigurd of Salten 






Epimetheus, or the Poet's Af- 






Fiord 


226 




terthought 


186 


XII. 


King Olaf's Christmas 


227 




The Ladder of St. Augustine 


186 


XIII. 


The Building of the 






The Phantom Ship . 


187 




Long Serpent 


228 




The Warden of the Cinque Ports 


188 


XIV. 


The Crew of the Long 






Haunted Houses . 


188 




Serpent 


229 




In the Churchyard at Cam- 




XV. 


A Little Bird in the 






bridge ..... 


189 




Air 


230 




The Emperor's Bird's-Nest 


189 


XVI. 


Queen Thyri and the 






The Two Angels . 


190 




Angelica Stalks . 


230 




Daylight and Moonlight . 


191 


XVII. 


King Svend of the 






The Jewish Cemetery at New 






Forked Beard . 


23! 




port ..... 


191 


XVIII. 


King Olaf and Earl 






Oliver Basselin 


192 




Sigvald . 


232 




Victor Galbraith . 


193 


XIX. 


King Olaf's War- 






My Lost Youth . 


194 




Horns 


233 




The Ropewalk 


195 


XX. 


Einar Tamberskelver . 


233 




The Golden Mile-Stone . 


195 


XXI. 


King Olaf's Death- 






Catawba Wine 


196 




Drink . 


234 




Santa Filomena . 


. 197 


XXII. 


The Nun of Nidaros 


235 




The Discoverer of the Nortf 


[ 


Interlude ..... 


236 




Cape ..... 


197 


The Theologian's Tale : Torque- 






Daybreak .... 


. 199 


mada .... 


236 




The Fiftieth Birthday op Ag 




Interlude 


239 




assiz ..... 


199 


The Poet's Tale: The Birds of 






Children .... 


. 199 


KlLLINGWORTH 


240 




Sandalphon . 


200 


Finale 




243 



CONTENTS 



Vll 



Part Second. 

Prelude 244 

The Sicilian's Tale: The Bell 

of Atri .... 245 

Interlude 247 

The Spanish Jew's Tale: Kambalu 247 

Interlude ..... 24S 

The Student's Tale: The Cob- 
bler of Hagenau 

Interlude 

The Musician's Tale: The Bal- 
lad of Carmilhan . 

Interlude ..... 

The Poet's Tale: Lady Went- 
worth . 

Interlude ..... 

The Theologian's Tale: The 
Legend Beautiful . 

Interlude 

The Student's Second Tale: 
The Baron of St. Castine 

Finale ..... 

Part Third. 

Prelude 

The Spanish Jew's Tale: Azrael 

Interlude 

The Poet's Tale: Charlemagne 265 

Interlude 266 

The Student's Tale: Emma and 
Eginhard .... 

Interlude 

The Theologian's Tale: Eliza- 
beth ..... 

Interlude 

The Sicilian's Tale: The Monk 
of Casal-Maggiore . 

Interlude 

The Spanish Jew's Second Tale: 
scanderbeg 

Interlude 

The Musician's Tale: The Mo- 
ther's Ghost . 

Interlude 

The Landlord's Tale: The 
Rhyme of Sir Christopher . 

Finale 



249 
251 

252 
254 

255 
257 

257 
259 

259 
262 

263 
264 

264 



266 
269 



270 
275 



275 
279 



280 
281 



2.S2 
283 



284 
286 



-LOWER-DE-LUCE. 
Flower-de-Luce . 
Palingenesis .... 
The Bridge of Cloud 
Hawthorne .... 
Christmas Bells 
The Wind over the Chimney 
The Bells of Lynn . 
Killed at the Ford 
Giotto's Tower 
To-Morrow .... 
Divina Commedia 
Noel ..... 



BIRDS OF PASSAGE. 

Flight the Third. 
Fata Morgana . 
The Haunted Chamber 



287 
287 
288 
289 
289 
289 
290 
291 
291 
291 
292 
293 



294 
294 



p<es 

The Meeting 295 

Vox Populi 295 

The Castle-Builder .... 295 

Changed 295 

The Challenge 295 

The Brook and the Wave . . 296 
Aftermath ...... 296 

THE MASQUE OF PANDORA. 

The Masque of Pandora . . 297 
I. The Workshop of Hephaes- 
tus 297 

II. Olympus 298 

III. Tower of Prometheus on 

Mount Caucasus . . . 298 

IV. The Air 300 

V. The House of Epimetheus . 301 

VI. In the Garden . . . 302 

VII. The House of Epimetheus . 305 

VIII. In the Garden . . . 306 

THE HANGING OF THE CRANE . 308 

MORITURI SALUTAMUS . . .310 

A BOOK OF SONNETS. 

Three Friends of Mine . . . 314 
Chaucer ...... 315 

Shakespeare 315 

Milton ...... 315 

Keats 316 

The Galaxy 316 

The Sound of the Sea . . . 316 
A Summer Day by the Sea . . 316 

The Tides 317 

A Shadow 317 

A Nameless Grave . . . .317 

Sleep 317 

The Old Bridge at Florence . . 318 
II Ponte Vecchio di Firenze . 318 
Nature . . . . . .318 

In the Churchyard at Tarrytown 318 

Eliot's Oak 318 

The Descent of the Muses . 319 

Venice 319 

The Poets 319 

Parker Cleaveland . . . .319 
The Harvest Moon . . . 320 
To the River Rhone . . . 320 

The Three Silences of Molinos . 320 
The Two Rivers .... 320 

Boston 321 

St. John's, Cambridge . . . 321 
Moods ...... 322 

Woodstock Park .... 322 

The Four Princesses at Wilna . 322 

Holidays 322 

Wapentake ..... 323 
The Broken Oar .... 323 
The Cross of Snow . . . 323 

BIRDS OF PASSAGE. 
Flight the Fourth. 

Charles Sumner .... 324 

Travels by the Fireside . . 324 



Vlll 



CONTENTS 



PAGH 

Cadenabbia 325 

Monte Cassino .... 325 

Amalfi 326 

The Sermon of St. Francis . . 327 
Belisarius ...... 328 

Songo River 328 

KERAMOS 329 



BIRDS OF PASSAGE. 
Flight the Fifth. 
The Herons of Elmwood 
A Dutch Picture 

Castles in Spain . 

VlTTORIA COLONNA 



333 
. 334 

335 
. 336 



The Revenge of Rain-in-the-Face 336 
To the River Yvette . . . 337 
The Emperor's Glove . . . 337 
A Ballad of the French Fleet . 337 
The Leap of Roushan Beg . . 338 
Haroun al Raschid .... 339 
King Trisanku . . . .339 
A Wraith in the Mist . . . 339 
The Three Kings .... 339 
Song: "Stay, stay at home, my 

heart, and rest" . . . 340 
The White Czar . . . .341 
Delia 341 



ULTIMA THULE. 

Dedication .... 
Poems. 

Bayard Taylor .... 

The Chamber over the Gate 

From my Arm-Chair . 

Jugurtha .... 

The Iron Pen .... 

Robert Burns 

Helen of Tyre .... 

Elegiac ..... 

Old St. David's at Radnor 
Folk-Songs. 

The Sifting of Peter . 

Maiden and Weathercock 

The Windmill .... 

The Tide rises, the Tide falls 
Sonnets. 

My Cathedral .... 

The Burial of the Poet 

Night 

L'Envoi. 

The Poet and his Songs . 

IN THE HARBOR. 



Becalmed .... 

The Poet's Calendar 

Autumn within 

The Four Lakes of Madison 

Victor and Vanquished 

Moonlight .... 

The Children's Crusade 

Sundown 

Chimes .... 

Four by the Clock . 

Auf Wiedersehen . 



342 

342 
342 
343 
344 
344 
344 
345 
345 
346 

346 
347 
347 
347 

348 
348 
348 

348 



349 
349 
351 
351 
351 
352 
352 
353 
354 
354 
354 



Elegiac Verse . 

The City and the Sea 

Memories . 

Hermes Trismegistus 

To the Avon 

President Garfield 

My Books . 

Mad River 

Possibilities 

Decoration Day 

A Fragment 

Loss and Gain 

Inscription on the Shanklin 

tain .... 
The Bells of San Blas 



Foun- 



PASll 

, 35<.i 

356 
, 356 

356 
, 357 

357 
, 358 

358 
. 359 

359 
, 359 

359 

360 
360 



FRAGMENTS. 

"Neglected record of a mind neg- 
lected" ..... 360 
"O faithful, indefatigable tides" 361 
"Soft through the silent air" . 361 
"so from the bosom of darkness" 361 



CHRISTUS: A MYSTERY. 
Introitus 



362 



PART I. THE DIVINE TRAGEDY. 
The First Passover. 



I. 


Vox Clamantis . 


363 


II. 


Mount Quarantania 


364 


III. 


The Marriage in Cana 


366 


IV. 


In the Cornfields . 


368 


V. 


Nazareth .... 


369 


VI. 


The Sea of Galilee 


370 


VII. 


The Demoniac of Gadara . 


371 


VIII. 


Talitha Cumi . 


373 


IX. 


The Tower of Magdala 


374 


X. 


The House of Simon the 






Pharisee . 


375 


3E Second Passover. 




I. 


Before the Gates of Mach,e- 






rus .... 


376 


II. 


Herod's Banquet-Hall . 


377 


III. 


Under the Walls of Mach^e- 






rus ..... 


378 


IV. 


Nicodemus at Night 


379 


V. 


Blind Bartimeus 


381 


VI. 


Jacob's Well . 


382 


VII. 


The Coasts of Cesarea Philippi 


384 


VIII. 


The Young Ruler . 


386 



IX. At Bethany . . .387 

X. Born Blind .... 387 
XI. Simon Magus and Helen of 

Tyre . . . .389 
The Third Passover. 

I. The Entry into Jerusalem . 391 
Solomon's Porch . . 393 

Lord, is it I ? . . . . 395 
The Garden of Gethsemane 396 



II. 

III. 

IV. 

V. 

VI. 

VII. 

VIII. 

IX. 

X. 



The Palace of Caiaphas . 397 
Pontius Pilate . . . 399 
Barabbas in Prison . . 400 
Ecce Homo . . . .401 
Aceldama .... 402 

The Three Crosses . . 403 





CONTENTS 




ix 






PAGE 






PAGE 


XI. 


The Two Maries . 


404 


PART III. THE 




XII. 


The Sea of Galilee . 


404 


GEDIES. 






Epilogue. 

Symbolum Apostolorum . 


406 


John Endicott. 

Proloque 


465 


First I 
•The 


nterlude. 
Abbot Joachim 


407 


Act I. 
Act II. 




466 
471 


PART II 


THE GOLDEN LEGEND. 




Act III. 
Act IV. 





477 
484 


Prolog 
The 


UE. 

Spire of Strasburq Cathedral 


408 


Act V. ..... 

Giles Corey of the Salem Farms. 


491 


I. 


The Castle of Vautsberg on 


409 
413 


Prologue 




495 




the Rhine 
Court-yard of the Castle . 


Act I. 
Act II. 
Act III. 
Act IV. 




496 
501 
507 
513 


II. 


A Farm in the Odenwald . 
A Room in the Farm-house 


415 

418 






Elsie's Chamber 

The Chamber of Gottlieb and 

Ursula .... 
A Village Church . 


420 

420 
422 


Act V. 
Finale. 
St. John 




519 
522 




A Room in the Farm-house 


425 


JUDAS MACCABEUS. 






In the Garden 


426 


Act I. 


The Citadel of Antiochus 




III. 


A Street in Strasburg 


427 




at Jerusalem 


523 




Square in Front of the Ca- 




Act II. 


The Dungeons in the Cit- 






thedral . 


429 




adel. . 


526 




In the Cathedral 


430 


Act III. 


The Battle-Field of Beth- 






The Nativity: A Miracle-Play. 






Horon .... 


529 




Introitus . . . . 


431 


Act IV. 


The Outer Courts of the 






I. Heaven 


431 




Temple at Jerusalem . 


532 




II. Mary at the Well . 


432 


Act V. 


The Mountains of Ecba- 






III. The Angels of the 






tana .... 


534 




Seven Planets 


432 










IV. The Wise Men of the 




MICHAEL ANGELO: A FRAGMENT. 






East . 


433 


Dedication . 


537 




V. The Flight into Egypt 


433 


Part First. 






VI. The Slaughter of the 




I. 


Prologue at Ischia 


537 




Innocents 


434 




Monologue : The Last 






VII. Jesus at Play with his 






Judgment 


540 




Schoolmates 


435 


II. 


San Silvestro 


541 




VIII. The Village School . 


435 


III. 


Cardinal Ippoltto . 


543 




IX. Crowned with Flowers 


436 


IV. 


BORGO DELLE VERGINE AT 






Epilogue .... 


437 




Naples 


548 


IV. 


The Road to Hirschau . 


437 


V. 


VlTTORIA COLONNA . 


551 




The Convent of Hirschau in 




Part Second. 






the Black Forest 


438 


I. 


Monologue . 


555 




The Scriptorium 


439 


II. 


Viterbo . 


556 




The Cloisters 


440 


III. 


Michael Angelo and Ben- 






The Chapel . 


442 




venuto Cellini . 


557 




The Refectory 


443 


IV. 


Fra Sebastiano del 






The Neighboring Nunnery . 


446 




PlOMBO . 


560 


V. 


A Covered Bridge at Lucerne 


449 


V. 


Palazzo Belvederb 


565 




The Devil's Bridge 


450 


VI. 


Palazzo Cesarini 


567 




The St. Gothard Pass 


451 


Part Third. 






At the Foot of the Alps 


452 


I. 


Monologue . 


569 




The Inn at Genoa 


454 


II. 


Vigna di Papa Giulio 


570 




At Sea . 


455 


III. 


Bindo Altoviti 


574 


VI. 


The School of Salerno 


455 


IV. 


In the Coliseum 


575 




The Farm-house in the Oden- 




V. 


Macello de' Cor vi 


576 




wald . . . . . 


459 


VI. 


Michael Angelo's Studio 


581 




The Castle of Vautsberg on 




VII. 


The Oaks of Monte Luca 


583 




the Rhine 


461 


VIII. 


The Dead Christ . 


585 


Epilogue. 










The Two Recording Angels ascend- 




translation; 




ing ...... 


462 


Prelude 




587 


Second 


Interlude. 




From the 


Spanish. 




Martin Luther 


463 


COPLAS DE MANRIQUE . 


587 



CONTENTS 



PAGE 

Sonnets. 

I. The Good Shepherd . 592 

II. To-Morrow . . . 593 

III. The Native Land . 593 

IV. The Image op God . . 593 
V. The Brook . . . 593 

Ancient Spanish Ballads. 

I. Rio Verde, Rio Verde . 594 
II. Don Nuno, Count of Lara 594 
III. The peasant leaves his 

plough afield . . 594 
Vida de San Millan . . . 595 
San Miguel, the Convent . 596 
Song: She is a maid of artless 

grace .... 596 
Santa Teresa's Book-Mark . 597 
From the Cancioneros. 

I. Eyes so tristful, eyes so 

tristful . . . 597 

II. Some day, some day . 597 

III. Come, O Death, so silent 

flying .... 597 

IV. Glove of black in white 

hand bare . . . 597 
From the Swedish and Danish. 

Introductory Note . . . 598 
Passages from Frithiof's Saga. 

I. Frithiof's Homestead . 598 
II. A Sledge-ride on the Ice 599 

III. Frithiof's Temptation . 599 

IV. Frithiof's Farewell . 600 
The Children of the Lord's 

Supper 600 

King Christian . . . 607 

The Elected Knight . . . 608 
Childhood .... 608 

From the German. 

The Happiest Land > . . 609 
The Wave .... 609 

The Dead 610 

The Bird and the Ship , . 610 

Whither? 610 

Beware! . 611 

Song of the Bell . . .611 
The Castle by the Sea , . 611 
The Black Knight . . .612 
Song of the Silent Land . 612 
The Luck of Edenhall . .613 
The Two Locks of Hair . 613 
The Hemlock Tree . . .614 
Annie of Tharaw . . .614 
The Statue over the Cathe- 
dral Door .... 615 
The Legend of the Crossbill . 615 
The Sea hath its Pearls . 615 

Poetic Aphorisms . , .616 
Silent Love . . . .616 

Blessed are the Dead . „ 616 
Wanderer's Night-Songs . . 617 
Remorse . . . . .617 

Forsaken 618 

Allah ..... 618 



PAfelH 

From the Anglo-Saxon. 

The Grave 618 

Beowulf's Expedition to Heort 618 
The Soul's Complaint against 

the Body .... 620 
From the French. 

Song: Hark! hark! . . 621 

Song: And whither goest thou, 

gentle sigh . . . .621 
The Return of Spring . 621 

Spring 621 

The Child Asleep . . . 622 j 
Death of Archbishop Turpin . 622 
The Blind Girl of Castel 

Cuille .... 623 
A Christmas Carol . . . 628 
Consolation .... 628 
To Cardinal Richelieu . . 629 
The Angel and the Child . 629 
On the Terrace of the Aiga- 

lades 630 

To my Brooklet . . . 630 

Barreges 630 

Will ever the dear days come 

back again? . . .631 
At La Chaudeau . . .631 

A Quiet Life . . . .631 
The Wine of Jurancon . . 632 
Friar Lubin . .* . . 632 

Rondel 632 

My Secret . . . .632 
From the Italian. 

The Celestial Pilot . . . 633 
The Terrestrial Paradise . 633 

Beatrice 634 

To Italy 635 

Seven Sonnets and a Canzone. 

I. The Artist . . . 635 
II. Fire ... 635 

III. Youth and Age . . 63f 

IV. Old Age . . . 63( 

V. TO VlTTORIA COLONNA . 63b 
VI. TO VlTTORIA COLONNA . 636 

VII. Dante . . . .637 
VIII. Canzone . . .637 

The Nature of Love . . 637 

From the Portuguese. 

Song: If thou art sleeping, 

maiden .... 637 

From Eastern Sources. 

The Fugitive .... 638 
The Siege of Kazan . . 639 
The Boy and the Brook . . 639 
To the Stork . . . 639 

From the Latin. 

Virgil's First Eclogue . . 640 
Ovid in Exile . . . 641 



INDEX OF FIRST LINES 
INDEX OF TITLES 



647 
652 



POETICAL WORKS 



VOICES OF THE NIGHT 



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v~b yap a\yeu>v, xnro re crvp.<popas 

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Euripides. 



PRELUDE 

Pleasant it was, when woods were green 

And winds were soft and low, 
To lie amid some sylvan scene, 
Where, the long drooping boughs between, 
Shadows dark and sunlight sheen 

Alternate come and go; 

Or where the denser grove receives 

No sunlight from above, 
But the dark foliage interweaves 
In one unbroken roof of leaves, 
Underneath whose sloping eaves 

The shadows hardly move. 

Beneath some patriarchal tree 

I lay upon the ground; 
His hoary arms uplifted he, 
And all the broad leaves over me 
Clapped their little hands in glee, 

With one continuous sound; — 

A slumberous sound, a sound that brings 

The feelings of a dream, 
As of innumerable wings, 
As, when a bell no longer swings, 
Faint the hollow murmur rings 

O'er meadow, lake, and stream. 

And dreams of that which cannot die, 

Bright visions, came to me, 
As lapped in thought I used to lie, 
And gaze into the summer sky, 
Where the sailing clouds went by, 

Like ships upon the sea; 



Dreams that the soul of youth engage 

Ere Fancy has been quelled; 

Old legends of the monkish page, 

Traditions of the saint and sage, 

Tales that have the rime of age, 

And chronicles of eld. 

And, loving still these quaint old themes, 

Even in the city's throng 
I feel the freshness of the streams, 
That, crossed by shades and sunny 

gleams, 
Water the green land of dreams, 

The holy laud of song. 

Therefore, at Pentecost, which brings 
The Spring, clothed like a bride, 

When nestling buds unfold their wings, 

And bishop's-caps have golden rings, 

Musing upon many things, 
I sought the woodlands wide. 

The green trees whispered low and 
mild; 

It was a sound of joy ! 
They were my playmates when a child, 
And rocked me in their arms so wild ! 
Still they looked at me and smiled, 

As if I were a boy; 

And ever whispered, mild and low, 
"Come, be a child once more! " 

And waved their long arms to and fro, 

And beckoned solemnly and slow; 

Oh, I could not choose but go 
Into the woodlands hoar, — 



VOICES OF THE NIGHT 



Into the blithe and breathing air, 


Then comes the fearful wintry blast; 


Into the solemn wood, 


Our hopes, like withered leaves, fall fast; 


Solemn and silent everywhere ! 


Pallid lips say, ' It is past ! 


Nature with folded hands seemed there, 


We can return no more ! ' 


Kneeling at her evening prayer ! 




Like one in prayer I stood. 


" Look, then, into thine heart, and write ! 




Yes, into Life's deep stream ! 


Before me rose an avenue 


All forms of sorrow and delight, 


Of tall and sombrous pines; 


All solemn Voices of the Night, 


Abroad their fan-like branches grew, 


That can soothe thee, or affright, — 


And, where the sunshine darted through, 


Be these henceforth thy theme." 


Spread a vapor soft and blue, 




In long and sloping lines. 






HYMN TO THE NIGHT 


And, falling on my weary brain, 




Like a fast-falling shower, 


'Atriracrir}, rpiWiaros 


The dreams of youth came back again, — 




Low lispings of the summer rain, 


I heard the trailing garments of the 


Dropping on the ripened grain, 


Night 


As once upon the flower. 


Sweep through her marble halls ! 




I saw her sable skirts all fringed with 


Visions of childhood ! Stay, oh, stay ! 


light 


Ye were so sweet and wild ! 


From the celestial walls ! 


And distant voices seemed to say, 




" It cannot be ! They pass away ! 


I felt her presence, by its spell of might, 


Other themes demand thy lay; 


Stoop o'er me from above ; 


Thou art no more a child ! 


The calm, majestic presence of the Night, 




As of the one I love. 


" The land of Song within thee lies, 




Watered by living springs; 


I heard the sounds of sorrow and delight, 


The lids of Fancy's sleepless eyes 


The manifold, soft chimes, 


Are gates unto that Paradise; 


That fill the haunted chambers of the 


Holy thoughts, like stars, arise; 


Night, 


Its clouds are angels' wings. 


Like some old poet's rhymes. 


"Learn, that henceforth thy song shall 


From the cool cisterns of the midnight air 


be, 


My spirit drank repose; 


Not mountains capped with snow, 


The fountain of perpetual peace flows 


Nor forests sounding like the sea, 


there, — 


Nor rivers flowing ceaselessly, 


From those deep cisterns flows. 


Where the woodlands bend to see 




The bending heavens below. 


holy Night ! from thee I learn to bear 




What man has borne before ! 


" There is a forest where the din 


Thou layest thy finger on the lips of Care, 


Of iron branches sounds ! 


And they complain no more. 


A mighty river roars between, 




And whosoever looks therein 


Peace ! Peace ! Orestes-like I breathe this 


Sees the heavens all black with sin, 


prayer ! 


Sees not its depths, nor bounds. 


Descend with broad-winged flight, 




The welcome, the thrice-prayed for, the 


" Athwart the swinging branches cast, 


most fair, 


Soft rays of sunshine pour; 


The best-beloved Night ! 



THE LIGHT OF STARS 



A PSALM OF LIFE 


THE REAPER AND THE 




FLOWERS 


WHAT THE HEART OF THE YOUNG MAN 




SAID TO THE PSALMIST 


There is a Reaper, whose name is Death, 




And, with his sickle keen, 


Tell me not, in mournful numbers, 


He reaps the bearded grain at a breath, 


Life is but an empty dream ! — 


And the flowers that grow between. 


For the soul is dead that slumbers, 




And things are not what they seem. 


" Shall I have naught that is fair ? " saith 
he ; 
" Have naught but the bearded grain ? 


Life is real ! Life is earnest ! 


And the grave is not its goal; 


Though the breath of these flowers is sweet 


Dust thou art, to dust returnest, 


to me, 


Was not spoken of the soul. 


I will give them all back again." 


Not enjoyment, and not sorrow, 


He gazed at the flowers with tearful eyes, 


Is our destined end or way; 


He kissed their drooping leaves; 


But to act, that each to-morrow 


It was for the Lord of Paradise 


Find us farther than to-day. 


He bound them in his sheaves. 


Art is long, and Time is fleeting, 


" My Lord has need of these flowerets 


And our hearts, though stout and brave, 


gay," 


Still, like muffled drums, are beating 


The Reaper said, and smiled; 


funeral marches to the grave. 


" Dear tokens of the earth are they, 




Where He was once a child. 


In the world's broad field of battle, 




In the bivouac of Life, 


" They shall all bloom in fields of light, 


Be not like dumb, driven cattle! 


Transplanted by my care, 


Be a hero in the strife ! 


And saints, upon their garments white, 




These sacred blossoms wear." 


Trust no Future, howe'er pleasant ! 




Let the dead Past bury its dead ! 


And the mother gave, in tears and pain, 


Act, — act in the living Present ! 


The flowers she most did love; 


Heart within, and God o'erhead ! 


She knew she should find them all again 




In the fields of light above. 


Lives of great men all remind us 




We can make our lives sublime, 


Oh, not in cruelty, not in wrath, 


And, departing, leave behind us 


The Reaper came that day; 


Footprints oil the sands of time; 


'T was an angel visited the green earth, 




And took the flowers away. 


Footprints, that perhaps another, 




Sailing o'er life's solemn main, 




A forlorn and shipwrecked brother, 




Seeing, shall take heart again. 


THE LIGHT OF STARS 


Let us, then, be up and doing, 


The night is come, but not too soon ; 


With a heart for any fate ; 


And sinking silently, 


Still achieving, still pursuing, 


All silently, the little moon 


Learn to labor and to wait. 


Drops down behind the sky. 



VOICES OF THE NIGHT 



There is no light in earth or heaven 


The beloved, the true-hearted, 


But the eold light of stars; 


Come to visit me once more; 


And the first watch of night is given 




To the red planet Mars. 


He, the young and strong, who cherished 




Noble longings for the strife, 


Is it the tender star of love ? 


By the roadside fell and perished, 


The star of love and dreams ? 


Weary with the march of life ! 


Oh no ! from that blue tent above 




A hero's armor gleams. 


They, the holy ones and weakly, 




Who the cross of suffering bore, 


And earnest thoughts within me rise, 


Folded their pale hands so meekly, 


When I behold afar, 


Spake with us on earth no more ! 


Suspended in the evening skies, 




The shield of that red star. 


And with them the Being Beauteous, 




Who unto my youth was given, 


star of strength ! I see thee stand 


More than all things else to love me, 


And smile upon my pain ; 


And is now a saint in heaven. 


Thou beckonest with thy mailed hand, 




And I am strong again. 


With a slow and noiseless footstep 




Comes that messenger divine, 


Within my breast there is no light 


Takes the vacant chair beside me, 


But the cold light of stars ; 


Lays her gentle hand in mine. 


I give the first watch of the night 




To the red planet Mars. 


And she sits and gazes at me 




With those deep and tender eyes, 


The star of the unconquered will, 


Like the stars, so still and saint-like, 


He rises in my breast, 


Looking downward from the skies. 


Serene, and resolute, and still, 




And calm, and self-possessed. 


Uttered not, yet comprehended, 




Is the spirit's voiceless prayer, 


And thou, too, whosoe'er thou art, 


Soft rebukes, in blessings ended, 


That readest this brief psalm, 


Breathing from her lips of air. 


As one by one thy hopes depart, 




Be resolute and calm. 


Oh, though oft depressed and lonely, 




All my fears are laid aside, 


Oh, fear not in a world like this, 


If I but remember only 


And thou shalt know erelong, 


Such as these have lived and died ! 


Know how sublime a thing it is 




To suffer and be strong. 






FLOWERS 


FOOTSTEPS OF ANGELS 






Spake full well, in language quaint and 


When the hours of Day are numbered, 


olden, 


And the voices of the Night 


One who dwelleth by the castled Rhine, 


Wake the better soul, that slumbered, 


When he called the flowers, so blue and 


To a holy, calm delight; 


golden, 




Stars, that in earth's firmament do shine. 


Ere the evening lamps are lighted, 




And, like phantoms grim and tall, 


Stars they are, wherein we read our his- 


Shadows from the fitful firelight 


tory, 


Dance upon the parlor wall; 


As astrologers and seers of eld; 




Yet not wrapped about with awful mystery, 


Then the forms of the departed 


Like the burning stars, which tney 


Enter at the open door ; 


beheld. 



THE BELEAGUERED CITY 



Wondrous truths, and manifold as won- 
drous, 

God hath written in those stars above; 
But not less in the bright flowerets under us 

Stands the revelation of his love. 

Bright and glorious is that revelation, 
Written all over this great world of ours; 

Making evident our own creation, 

In these stars of earth, these golden 
flowers. 

And the Poet, faithful and far-seeing, 
Sees, alike in stars and flowers, a part 

Of the self-same, universal being, 

Which is throbbing in his brain and heart. 

Gorgeous flowerets in the sunlight shining, 
Blossoms flaunting in the eye of day, 

Tremulous leaves, with soft and silver lining, 
Buds that open only to decay; 

Brilliant hopes, all woven in gorgeous tis- 
sues, 

Flaunting gayly in the golden light ; 
Large desires, with most uncertain issues, 

Tender wishes, blossoming at night ! 

These in flowers and men are more than 
seeming, 
Workings are they of the self-same 
powers, 
Which the Poet, in no idle dreaming, 
Seeth in himself and in the flowers. 

Everywhere about us are they glowing, 
Some like stars, to tell us Spring is born ; 

Others, their blue eyes with tears o'erflow- 
ing, 
Stand like Ruth amid the golden corn; 

Not alone in Spring's armorial bearing, 
And in Summer's green-emblazoned field, 

But in arms of brave old Autumn's wearing, 
In the centre of his brazen shield; 

Not alone in meadows and green alleys, 
On the mountain-top, and by the brink 

Of sequestered pools in woodland valleys, 
Where the slaves of nature stoop to drink; 

Not alone in her vast dome of glory, 
Not on graves of bird and beast alone, 

But in old cathedrals, high and hoary, 
On the tombs of heroes, carved in stone; 



In the cottage of the rudest peasant, 

In ancestral homes, whose crumbling 
towers, 

Speaking of the Past unto the Present, 
Tell us of the ancient Games of Flowers; 

In all places, then, and in all seasons, 

Flowers expand their light and soul-like 
wings, 

Teaching us, by most persuasive reasons, 
How akin they are to human things. 

And with childlike, credulous affection, 
We behold their tender buds expand; 

Emblems of our own great resurrection, 
Emblems of the bright and better land. 



THE BELEAGUERED CITY 



I have read, in some old, marvellous tale> 
Some legend strange and vague, 

That a midnight host of spectres pale 
Beleaguered the walls of Prague. 

Beside the Moldau's rushing stream, 

With the wan moon overhead, 
There stood, as in an awful dream, 

The army of the dead. 

White as a sea-fog, landward bound, 

The spectral camp was seen, 
And, with a sorrowful, deep sound, 

The river flowed between. 

No other voice nor sound was there, 

No drum, nor sentry's pace; 
The mist-like banners clasped the air 

As clouds with clouds embrace. 

But when the old cathedral bell 
Proclaimed the morning prayer, 

The white pavilions rose and fell 
On the alarmed air. 

Down the broad valley fast and far 

The troubled army fled; 
Up rose the glorious morning star, 

The ghastly host was dead. 

I have read, in the marvellous heart of 
man, 

That strange and mystic scroll, 
That an army of phantoms vast and wan 

Beleaguer the human soul. 



VOICES OF THE NIGHT 



Encamped beside Life's rushing stream, 


And patter their doleful prayers; 


In Fancy's misty light, 


But their prayers are all in vain, 


Gigantic shapes and shadows gleam 


All in vain ! 


Portentous through the night. 






There he stands in the foul weather, 


Upon its midnight battle-ground 


The foolish, fond Old Year, 


The spectral camp is seen, 


Crowned with wild flowers and with heather, 


And, with a sorrowful, deep sound, 


Like weak, despised Lear, 


Flows the River of Life between. 


A king, a king ! 


No other voice nor sound is there, 


Then comes the summer-like day, 


In the army of the grave; 


Bids the old man rejoice ! 


No other challenge breaks the air, 


His joy ! his last ! Oh, the old man gray 


But the rushing of Life's wave. 


Loveth that ever-soft voice, 




Gentle and low. 


And when the solemn and deep church- 




bell 


To the crimson woods he saith, 


Entreats the soul to pray, 


To the voice gentle and low 


The midnight phantoms feel the spell, 


Of the soft air, like a daughter's breath, 


The shadows sweep away. 


" Pray do not mock me so ! 




Do not laugh at me ! " 


Down the broad Vale of Tears afar 




The spectral camp is fled; 


And now the sweet day is dead; 


Faith shineth as a morning star, 


Cold in his arms it lies; 


Our ghastly fears are dead. 


No stain from its breath is spread 




Over the glassy skies, 




No mist or stain ! 




Then, too, the Old Year dieth, 


MIDNIGHT MASS FOR THE 


And the forests utter a moan, 


DYING YEAR 


Like the voice of one who crieth 




In the wilderness alone, 


Yes, the Year is growing old, 


" Vex not his ghost ! " 


And his eye is pale and bleared ! 




Death, with frosty hand and cold, 


Then comes, with an awful roar, 


Plucks the old man by the beard, 


Gathering and sounding on, 


Sorely, sorely! 


The storm-wind from Labrador, 




The wind Euroclydon, 


The leaves are falling, falling, 


The storm-wind ! 


Solemnly and slow; 




Caw ! caw ! the rooks are calling, 


Howl ! howl ! and from the forest 


It is a sound of woe, 


Sweep the red leaves away ! 


A sound of woe ! 


Would the sins that thou abhorrest, 




soul ! could thus decay, 


Through woods and mountain passes 


And be swept away ! 


The winds, like anthems, roll ; 




They are chanting solemn masses, 


For there shall come a mightier blast, 


Singing, " Pray for this poor soul, 


There shall be a darker day; 


Pray, pray ! " 


And the stars, from heaven down-cast 




Like red leaves be swept away ! 


And the hooded clouds, like friars, 


Kyrie, eleyson ! 


Tell their beads in drops of rain, 


Christe, eleyson ! 



EARLIER POEMS 



AN APRIL DAY 

When the warm sun, that brings 
Seed-time and harvest, has returned again, 
'T is sweet to visit the still wood, where 
springs 

The first flower of the plain. 

I love the season well, 
When forest glades are teeming with bright 

forms, 
Nor dark and many-folded clouds foretell 

The coming-ou of storms. 

From the earth's loosened mould 
The sapling draws its sustenance, and 

thrives; 
Though stricken to the heart with winter's 
cold, 
The drooping tree revives. 

The softly-warbled song 
Comes from the pleasant woods, and colored 

wings 
Glance quick in the bright sun, that moves 
along 
The forest openings. 

When the bright sunset fills 
The silver woods with light, the green slope 

throws 
Its shadows in the hollows of the hills, 

And wide the upland glows. 

And when the eve is born, 
In the blue lake the sky, o'er-reaching far, 
Is hollowed out, and the moon dips her 
horn, 

And twinkles many a star. 

Inverted in the tide 
Stand the gray rocks, and trembling shad- 
ows throw, 
And the fair trees look over, side by side, 

And see themselves below. 

Sweet April ! many a thought 
Is wedded unto thee, as hearts are wed; 
Nor shall they fail, till, to its autumn 
brought, 

Life's golden fruit is shed. 



AUTUMN 

With what a glory comes and goes the 
year ! 
The buds of spring, those beautiful har- 
bingers 
Of sunny skies and cloudless times, enjoy 
Life's newness, and earth's garniture spread 

out; 
And when the silver habit of the clouds 
Comes down upon the autumn sun, and with 
A sober gladness the old year takes up 
His bright inheritance of golden fruits, 
A pomp and pageant fill the splendid scene. 

There is a beautiful spirit breathing now 
Its mellow richness on the clustered trees, 
And, from a beaker full of richest dyes, 
Pouring new glory on the autumn woods, 
And dipping in warm light the pillared 

clouds. 
Morn on the mountain, like a summer bird* 
Lifts up her purple wing, and in the vales 
The gentle wind, a sweet and passionate 

wooer, 
Kisses the blushing leaf, and stirs up life 
Within the solemn woods of ash deep-crim- 
soned, 
And silver beech, and maple yellow-leaved, 
Where Autumn, like a faint old man, sits 

down 
By the wayside a-weary. Through the trees 
The golden robin moves. The purple finch, 
That on wild cherry and red cedar feeds, 
A winter bird, comes with its plantive 

whistle, 
And pecks by the witch-hazel, whilst aloud 
From cottage roofs the warbling bluebird 

sings, 
And merrily, with oft-repeated stroke, 
Sounds from the threshing-floor the busv 

flail. 

Oh, what a glory doth this world put on 
For him who, with a fervent heart, goes forth 
Under the bright and glorious sky, and looks 
On duties well performed, and days well 

spent ! 
For him the wind, ay, and the yellow leaves, 
Shall have a voice, and give him eloquent 

teachings. 



IO 



EARLIER POEMS 



He shall so hear the solemn hymn that Death 
Has lifted up for all, that he shall go 
To his long resting-place without a tear. 



WOODS IN WINTER 

When winter winds are piercing chill, 
And through the hawthorn blows the 
gale, 

With solemn feet I tread the hill, 
That overbrows the lonely vale. 

O'er the bare upland, and away 

Through the long reach of desert woods, 
The embracing sunbeams chastely play, 

And gladden these deep solitudes. 

Where, twisted round the barren oak, 
The summer vine in beauty clung, 

And summer winds the stillness broke, 
The crystal icicle is hung. 

Where, from their frozen urns, mute 
springs 

Pour out the river's gradual tide, 
Shrilly the skater's iron rings, 

And voices fill the woodland side. 

Alas ! how changed from the fair scene, 
When birds sang out their mellow lay, 

And winds were soft, and woods were green, 
And the song ceased not with the day ! 

But still wild music is abroad, 

Pale, desert woods ! within your crowd; 
And gathering winds, in hoarse accord, 

Amid the vocal reeds pipe loud. 

Chill airs and wintry winds ! my ear 
Has grown familiar with your song; 

I hear it in the opening year, 
I listen, and it cheers me long. 



HYMN OF THE MORAVIAN 
NUNS OF BETHLEHEM 



AT THE 



CONSECRATION 
BANNER 



OF FULASKTS 



When the dying flame of day 
Through the chancel shot its ray, 
Far the glimmering tapers shed 
Faint light on the cowled head ; 



And the censer burning swung, 

Where, before the altar, hung 

The crimson banner, that with prayer 

Had been consecrated there. 

And the nuns' sweet hymn was heard 

while, 
Sung low, in the dim, mysterious aisle. 



the 



"Take thy banner ! May it wave 
Proudly o'er the good and brave; 
When the battle's distant wail 
Breaks the sabbath of our vale, 
When the clarion's music thrills 
To the hearts of these lone hills, 
When the spear in conflict shakes, 
And the strong lance shivering breaks. 

" Take thy banner ! and, beneath 
The battle-cloud's encircling wreath, 
Guard it, till our homes are free ! 
Guard it ! God will prosper thee ! 
In the dark and trying hour, 
In the breaking forth of power, 
In the rush of steeds and men, 
His right hand will shield thee then. 

" Take thy banner ! But when night 
Closes round the ghastly fight, 
If the vanquished warrior bow, 
Spare him ! By our holy vow, 
By our prayers and many tears, 
By the mercy that endears, 
Spare him ! he our love hath shared ! 
Spare him ! as thou wouldst be spared ! 

" Take thy banner ! and if e'er 
Thou shouldst press the soldier's bier, 
And the muffled drum should beat 
To the tread of mournful feet, 
Then this crimson flag shall be 
Martial cloak and shroud for thee." 

The warrior took that banner proud, 
And it was his martial cloak and shroud! 



SUNRISE ON THE HILLS 

I stood upon the hills, when heaven's 
wide arch 
Was glorious with the sun's returning 

march, 
And woods were brightened, and soft gales 
Went forth to kiss the sun-clad vales. 



THE SPIRIT OF POETRY 



The clouds were far beneath me; bathed in 

light, 
They gathered midway round the wooded 

height, 
And, in their fading glory, shone 
Like hosts in battle overthrown, 
As many a pinnacle, with shifting glance, 
Through the gray mist thrust up its shat- 
tered lance, 
And rocking on the cliff Avas left 
The dark pine blasted, bare, and cleft. 
The veil of cloud was lifted, and below 
Glowed the rich valley, and the river's flow 
Was darkened by the forest's shade, 
Or glistened in the white cascade ; 
Where upward, in the mellow blush of day, 
The noisy bittern wheeled his spiral way. 

I heard the distant waters dash, 
I saw the current whirl and flash, 
And richly, by the blue lake's silver beach, 
The woods were bending with a silent 

reach. 
Then o'er the vale, with gentle swell, 
The music of the village bell 
Came sweetly to the echo-giving hills; 
And the wild horn, whose voice the wood- 
land fills, 
Was ringing to the merry shout 
That faint and far the glen sent out, 
Where, answering to the sudden shot, thin 

smoke, 
Through thick-leaved branches, from the 
dingle broke. 

If thou art worn and hard beset 
With sorrows, that thou wouldst forget, 
If thou wouldst read a lesson, that will keep 
Thy heart from fainting and thy soul from 

sleep, 
Go to the woods and hills ! No tears 
Dim the sweet look that Nature wears. 



THE SPIRIT OF POETRY 

There is a quiet spirit in these woods, 

That dwells where'er the gentle south-wind 
blows ; 

Where, underneath the white-thorn in the 
glade, 

The wild flowers bloom, or, kissing the 
soft air, 

The leaves above their sunny palms out- 
spread. 



With what a tender and impassioned voice 
It fills the nice and delicate ear of thought, 
When the fast ushering star of morning 

comes 
O'er-riding the gray hills with golden 

scarf; 
Or when the cowled and dusky-sandalled 

Eve, 
In mourning weeds, from out the western 

gate, 
Departs with silent pace ! That spirit 

moves 
In the green valley, where the silver brook, 
From its full laver, pours the white cas- 
cade; 
And, babbling low amid the tangled woods, 
Slips down through moss-grown stones with 

endless laughter. 
And frequent, on the everlasting hills, 
Its feet go forth, when it doth wrap itself 
In all the dark embroidery of the storm, 
And shouts the stern, strong wind. And 

here, amid 
The silent majesty of these deep woods, 
Its presence shall uplift thy thoughts from 

earth, 
As to the sunshine and the pure, bright air 
Their tops the green trees lift. Hence 

gifted bards 
Have ever loved the calm and quiet 

shades. 
For them there was an eloquent voice in 

all 
The sylvan pomp of woods, the golden sun, 
The flowers, the leaves, the river on its 

way, 
Blue skies, and silver clouds, and gentle 

winds, 
The swelling upland, where the sidelong 

sun 
Aslant the wooded slope, at evening, goes, 
Groves, through whose broken roof the 

sky looks in, 
Mountain, and shattered cliff, and sunny 

vale, 
The distant lake, fountains, and mighty 

trees, 
In many a lazy syllable, repeating 
Their old poetic legends to the wind. 

And this is the sweet spirit that doth 

fill 
The world ; and, in these wayward days of 

youth, 
My busy fancy oft embodies it, 



12 



EARLIER POEMS 



As a bright image of the light and beauty 
That dwell in nature ; of the heavenly 

forms 
We worship in our dreams, and the soft hues 
That stain the wild bird's wing, and flush 

the clouds 
When the sun sets. Within her tender eye 
The heaven of April, with its changing 

light, 
And when it wears the blue of May, is 

hung, 
And on her lip the rich, red rose. Her hair 
Is like the summer tresses of the trees, 
When twilight makes them brown, and on 

her cheek 
Blushes the richness of an autumn sky, 
With ever - shifting beauty. Then her 

breath, 
It is so like the gentle air of Spring, 
As, from the morning's dewy flowers, it 

comes 
Full of their fragrance, that it is a joy 
To have it round us, and her silver voice 
Is the rich music of a summer bird, 
Heard in the still night, with its passionate 

cadence. 



BURIAL OF THE MINNISINK 

On sunny slope and beechen swell, 
The shadowed light of evening fell ; 
And r where the maple's leaf was brown, 
With soft and silent lapse came down, 
The glory, that the wood receives, 
At sunset, in its golden leaves. 

Far upward in the mellow light 

Rose the blue hills. One cloud of white, 

Around a far uplifted cone, 

In the warm blush of evening shone; 

An image of the silver lakes, 

By which the Indian's soul awakes. 

But soon a funeral hymn was heard 
Where the soft breath of evening stirred 
The tall, gray forest; and a band 
Of stern in heart, and strong in hand, 
Came winding down beside the wave, 
To lay the red chief in his grave. 

They sang, that by his native bowers 
He stood, in the last moon of flowers, 
And thirty snows had not yet shed 
Their glory on the warrior's head; 



But, as the summer fruit decays, 
So died he in those naked days. 

A dark cloak of the roebuck's skin 
Covered the warrior, and within 
Its heavy folds the weapons, made 
For the hard toils of war, were laid; 
The cuirass, woven of plaited reeds, 
And the broad belt of shells and beads. 

Before, a dark-haired virgin train 
Chanted the death dirge of the slain; 
Behind, the long procession came 
Of hoary men ana chiefs of fame, 
With heavy hearts, and eyes of grief, 
Leading the war-horse of their chief. 

Stripped of his proud and martial dress, 
Uncurbed, unreined, and riderless, 
With darting eye, and nostril spread, 
And heavy and impatient tread, 
He came ; and oft that eye so proud 
Asked for his rider in the crowd. 

They buried the dark chief; they freed 
Beside the grave his battle steed ; 
And swift an arrow cleaved its way 
To his stern heart ! One piercing neigh 
Arose, and, on the dead man's plain, 
The rider grasps his steed again. 



L'ENVOI 

Ye voices, that arose 

After the Evening's close, 

And whispered to my restless heart repose ! 

Go, breathe it in the ear 

Of all who doubt and fear, 

And say to them, " Be of good cheer I " 

Ye sounds, so low and calm, 

That in the groves of balm 

Seemed to me like an angel's psalm ! 

Go, mingle yet once more 

With the perpetual roar 

Of the pine forest, dark and hoar ! 

Tongues of the dead, not lost, 
But speaking from death's frost, 
Like fiery tongues at Pentecost ! 

Glimmer, as funeral lamps, 
Amid the chills and damps 
Of the vast plain where Death encamps ! 



BALLADS AND OTHER POEMS 



THE SKELETON IN ARMOR 

" Speak ! speak ! thou fearful 
guest ! 
Who, with thy hollow breast 
Still in rude armor drest, 

Comest to daunt me ! 
Wrapt not in Eastern balms, 
But with thy fleshless palms 
Stretched, as if asking- alms, 
Why dost thou haunt me ? " 

Then, from those cavernous eyes 
Pale flashes seemed to rise, 
As when the Northern skies 

Gleam in December ; 
And, like the water's flow 
Under December's snow, 
Came a dull voice of woe 

From the heart's chamber. 

"I was a Viking old ! 
My deeds, though manifold, 
No Skald in song has told, 

No Saga taught thee ! 
Take heed, that in thy verse 
Thou dost the tale rehearse, 
Else dread a dead man's curse; 

For this I sought thee. 

" Far in the Northern Land, 
By the wild Baltic's strand, 
I, with my childish hand, 

Tamed the gerfalcon ; 
And, with my skates fast-bound, 
Skimmed the half-frozen Sound, 
That the poor whimpering hound 

Trembled to walk on. 

"Oft to his frozen lair 
Tracked I the grisly bear, 
While from my path the hare 

Fled like a shadow ; 
Oft through the forest dark 
Followed the were-wolf's bark, 
Until the soaring lark 

Sang from the meadow. 

"But when I older grew, 
Joining a corsair's crew, 



O'er the dark sea I flew 

With the marauders. 
Wild was the life we led; 
Many the souls that sped, 
Many the hearts that bled, 

By our stern orders. 

" Many a wassail-bout 
Wore the long Winter out ; 
Often our midnight shout 

Set the cocks crowing, 
As we the Berserk's tale 
Measured in cups of ale, 
Draining the oaken pail, 

Filled to o'erflowing. 

" Once as I told in glee 
Tales of the stormy sea, 
Soft eyes did gaze on me, 

Burning yet tender ; 
And as the white stars shine 
On the dark Norway pine, 
On that dark heart of mine 

Fell their soft splendor. 

"I wooed the blue-eyed maid, 
Yielding, yet half afraid, 
And in the forest's shade 

Our vows were plighted. 
Under its loosened vest 
Fluttered her little breast, 
Like birds within their nest 

By the hawk frighted. 

" Bright in her father's hall 
Shields gleamed upon the wall, 
Loud sang the minstrels all, 

Chanting his glory ; 
When of old Hildebrand 
I asked his daughter's hand, 
Mute did the minstrels stand 

To hear my story. 

"While the brown ale he quaffed, 
Loud then the champion laughed, 
And as the wind-gusts waft 

The sea-foam brightly, 
So the loud laugh of scorn, 
Out of those lips unshorn, 
From the deep drinking-horn 

Blew the foam lightly. 



14 



BALLADS AND OTHER POEMS 



" She was a Prince's child, 
I but a Viking wild, 
And though she blushed and smiled, 

I was discarded ! 
Should not the dove so white 
Follow the sea-mew's flight, 
Why did they leave that night 

Her nest unguarded ? 

" Scarce had I put to sea, 
Bearing the maid with me, 
Fairest of all was she 

Among the Norsemen ! 
When on the white sea-strand, 
Waving his armed hand, 
Saw we old Hildebrand, 

With twenty horsemen. 

" Then launched they to the blast, 
Bent like a reed each mast, 
Yet we were gaining fast, 

When the wind failed us; 
And with a sudden flaw 
Came round the gusty Skaw, 
So that our foe we saw 

Laugh as he hailed us. 

** And as to catch the gale 
Round veered the flapping sail, 
' Death! ' was the helmsman's hail, 

' Death without quarter ! ' 
Mid-ships with iron keel 
Struck we her ribs of steel; 
Down her black hulk did reel 
Through the black water ! 

" As with his wings aslant, 
Sails the fierce cormorant, 
Seeking some rocky haunt, 

With his prey laden, — 
So toward the open main, 
Beating to sea again, 
Through the wild hurricane, 
Bore I the maiden. 

" Three weeks we westward bore, 
And when the storm was o'er, 
Cloud-like we saw the shore 

Stretching to leeward ; 
There for my lady's bower 
Built I the lofty tower, 
Which, to this very hour, 

Stands looking seaward. 

" There lived we many years ; 
Time dried the maiden's tears; 



She had forgot her fears, 

She was a mother; 
Death closed her mild blue eyes, 
Under that tower she lies; 
Ne'er shall the sun arise 

On such another ! 

" Still grew my bosom then, 
Still as a stagnant fen ! 
Hateful to me were men, 

The sunlight hateful 1 
In the vast forest here, 
Clad in my warlike gear, 
Fell I upon my spear, 

Oh, death was grateful ! 

" Thus, seamed with many scars, 
Bursting these prison bars, 
Up to its native stars 

My soul ascended ! 
There from the flowing bowl 
Deep drinks the warrior's soul, 
Skoal ! to the Northland ! skoal I " 

Thus the tale ended. 



THE WRECK OF THE HESPERUS 

It was the schooner Hesperus, 

That sailed the wintry sea; 
And the skipper had taken his little daugh- 
ter, 

To bear him company. 

Blue were her eyes as the fairy-flax, 
Her cheeks like the dawn of day, 

And her bosom white as the hawthorn 
buds, 
That ope in the month of May. 

The skipper he stood beside the helm, 

His pipe was in his mouth, 
And he watched how the veering flaw did 
blow 

The smoke now West, now South. 

Then up and spake an old Sail6r, 

Had sailed to the Spanish Main, 

" I pray thee, put into yonder port, 
For I fear a hurricane. 

"Last night, the moon had a golden ring, 
And to-night no moon we see ! " 

The skipper, he blew a whiff from his pipe, 
And a scornful laugh laughed he. 



THE VILLAGE BLACKSMITH 



r S 



Colder and louder blew the wind, 

A gale from the Northeast, 
The snow fell hissing in the brine, 

And the billows frothed like yeast. 

Down came the storm, and smote amain 

The vessel in its strength; 
She shuddered and paused, like a frighted 
steed, 

Then leaped her cable's length. 

" Come hither ! come hither ! my little 
daughter, 

And do not tremble so; 
For I can weather the roughest gale 

That ever wind did blow." 

He wrapped her warm in his seaman's coat 

Against the stinging blast; 
He cut a rope from a broken spar, 

And bound her to the mast. 

" father ! I hear the church-bells ring, 

Oh say, what may it be? " 
" 'T is a fog-bell on a rock-bound coast! " — 

And he steered for the open sea. 

" O father ! I hear the sound of guns, 

Oh say, what may it be? " 
" Some ship in distress, that cannot live 

In such an angry sea ! " 

" O father ! I see a gleaming light, 

Oh say, what may it be? " 
But the father answered never a word, 

A frozen corpse was he. 

Lashed to the helm, all stiff and stark, 
With his face turned to the skies, 

The lantern gleamed through the gleaming 
snow 
On his fixed and glassy eyes. 

Then the maiden clasped her hands and 
prayed 
That saved she might be; 
And she thought of Christ, who stilled the 
wave, 
On the Lake of Galilee. 

And fast through the midnight dark and 
drear, 

Through the whistling sleet and snow, 
Like a sheeted ghost, the vessel swept 

Tow'rds the reef of Norman's Woe. 



And ever the fitful gusts between 
A sound came from the land; 

It was the sound of the trampling surf 
On the rocks and the hard sea-sand. 

The breakers were right beneath her bows, 

She drifted a dreary wreck, 
And a whooping billow swept the crew 

Like icicles from her deck. 

She struck where the white and fleecy waves 
Looked soft as carded wool, 

But the cruel rocks, they gored her side 
Like the horns of an angry bull. 

Her rattling shrouds, all sheathed in ice, 
With the masts went by the board; 

Like a vessel of glass, she stove and sank, 
Ho ! ho ! the breakers roared ! 

At daybreak, on the bleak sea-beach, 

A fisherman stood aghast, 
To see the form of a maiden fair, 

Lashed close to a drifting mast. 

The salt sea was frozen on her breast, 

The salt tears in her eyes; 
And he saw her hair, like the brown sea- 
weed, 

On the billows fall and rise. 

Such was the wreck of the Hesperus, 
In the midnight and the snow ! 

Christ save us all from a death like this, 
On the reef of Norman's Woe ! 



THE VILLAGE BLACKSMITH 

Under a spreading chestnut-tree 

The village smithy stands; 
The smith, a mighty man is he, 

With large and sinewy hands; 
And the muscles of his brawny arms 

Are strong as iron bands. 

His hair is crisp, and black, and long, 

His face is like the tan; 
His brow is wet with honest sweat, 

He earns whate'er he can, 
And looks the whole world in the face, 

For he owes not any man. 

Week in, week out, from morn till night, 
You can hear his bellows blow: 



i6 



BALLADS AND OTHER POEMS 



You can hear him swing his heavy 



With measured beat and slow, 
Like a sexton ringing the village bell, 
When the evening sun is low. 

And children coming home from school 

Look in at the open door; 
They love to see the flaming forge, 

And hear the bellows roar, 
And catch the burning sparks that fly 

Like chaff from a threshing-floor. 

He goes on Sunday to the church, 

And sits among his boys; 
He hears the parson pray and preach, 

He hears his daughter's voice, 
Singing in the village choir, 

And it makes his heart rejoice. 

It sounds to him like her mother's voice, 

Singing in Paradise ! 
He needs must think of her once more, 

How in the grave she lies; 
And with his hard, rough hand he wipes 

A tear out of his eyes. 

Toiling, — rejoicing, — sorrowing, 
Onward through life he goes; 

Each morning sees some task begin, 
Each evening sees it close; 

Something attempted, something done, 
Has earned a night's repose. 

Thanks, thanks to thee, my worthy 
friend, 

For the lesson thou hast taught ! 
Thus at the flaming forge of life 

Our fortunes must be wrought; 
Thus on its sounding anvil shaped 

Each burning deed and thought. 



ENDYMION 

The rising moon has hid the stars; 

Her level rays, like golden bars, 
Lie on the landscape green, 
With shadows brown between. 

And silver white the river gleams, 
As if Diana, in her dreams, 
Had dropt her silver bow 
Upon the meadows low. 



On such a tranquil night as this, 
She woke Endymion with a kiss, 
When, sleeping in the grove, 
He dreamed not of her love. 

Like Dian's kiss, unasked, unsought, 
Love gives itself, but is not bought; 
Nor voice, nor sound betrays 
Its deep, impassioned gaze. 

It comes, — the beautiful, the free, 
The crown of all humanity, — 

In silence and alone 

To seek the elected one. 

It lifts the boughs, whose shadows deep 
Are Life's oblivion, the soul's sleep, 
And kisses the closed eyes 
Of him who slumbering lies. 

O weary hearts ! O slumbering eyes I 
O drooping souls, whose destinies 

Are fraught with fear and pain, 

Ye shall be loved again ! 

No one is so accursed by fate, 
No one so utterly desolate, 

But some heart, though unknown, 

Responds unto his own. 

Responds, — as if with unseen wings, 
An angel touched its quivering strings; 

And whispers, in its song, 

" Where hast thou stayed so long ? " 



IT IS NOT ALWAYS MAY 

No hay pajaros en los nidos de antano. 

Spanish Proverb. 

The sun is bright, — the air is clear, 
The darting swallows soar and sing, 

And from the stately elms I hear 
The bluebird prophesying Spring. 

So blue yon winding river flows, 
It seems an outlet from the sky, 

Where, waiting till the west wind blows, 
The freighted clouds at anchor lie. 

All things are new; — the buds, the leaves, 
That gild the elm-tree's nodding crest, 

And even the nest beneath the eaves; — 
There are no birds in last year's nest ! 



TO THE RIVER CHARLES 



i7 



All things rejoice in youth and love, 
The fulness of their first delight ! 

And learn from the soft heavens above 
The melting tenderness of night. 

Maiden, that read'st this simple rhyme, 
Enjoy thy youth, it will not stay; 

Enjoy the fragrance of thy prime, 
For oh, it is not always May ! 

Enjoy the Spring of Love and Youth, 
To some good angel leave the rest; 

For Time will teach thee soon the truth, 
There are no birds in last year's nest ! 



THE RAINY DAY 

The day is cold, and dark, and dreary; 
It rains, and the wind is never weary; 
The vine still clings to the mouldering 

wall, 
But at every gust the dead leaves fall, 
And the day is dark and dreary. 

My life is cold, and dark, and dreary; 
It rains, and the wind is never weary; 
My thoughts still cling to the mouldering 

Past, 
But the hopes of youth fall thick in the 

blast, 
And the days are dark and dreary. 

Be still, sad heart ! and cease repining; 
Behind the clouds is the sun still shining; 
Thy fate is the common fate of all, 
Into each life some rain must fall, 

Some days must be dark and dreary. 



GOD'S-ACRE 

I like that ancient Saxon phrase, which 
calls 
The burial-ground God's-Acre ! It is 
just; 
It consecrates each grave within its 
walls, 
And breathes a benison o'er the sleeping 
dust. 

God's-Acre ! Yes, that blessed name im- 
parts 
Comfort to those who in the grave have 
sown 



The seed that they had garnered in their 
hearts, 
Their bread of life, alas ! no more their 
own. 

Into its furrows shall we all be cast, 

In the sure faith, that we shall rise 
again 
At the great harvest, when the archangel's 
blast 
Shall winnow, like a fan, the chaff and 
grain. 

Then shall the good stand in immortal 

bloom, 

In the fair gardens of that second birth; 

And each bright blossom mingle its perfume 

With that of flowers, which never bloomed 

on earth. 

With thy rude ploughshare, Death, turn 
up the sod, 
And spread the furrow for the seed we 
sow; 
This is the field and Acre of our God, 
This is the place where human harvests 
grow. 



TO THE RIVER CHARLES 

River ! that in silence windest 

Through the meadows, bright and free, 
Till at length thy rest thou findest 

In the bosom of the sea ! 

Four long years of mingled feeling, 
Half in rest, and half in strife, 

I have seen thy waters stealing 
Onward, like the stream of life. 

Thou hast taught me, Silent River ! 

Many a lesson, deep and long; 
Thou hast been a generous giver; 

I can give thee but a song. 

Oft in sadness and in illness, 

I have watched thy current glide, 

Till the beauty of its stillness 
Overflowed me, like a tide. 

And in better hours and brighter, 
When I saw thy waters gleam, 

I have felt my heart beat lighter, 
And leap onward with thy stream, 



i8 



BALLADS AND OTHER POEMS 



Not for this alone I love thee, 
Nor because thy waves of blue 

From celestial seas above thee 
Take their ovvu celestial hue. 

Where yon shadowy woodlands hide thee, 

And thy waters disappear, 
Friends I love have dwelt beside thee, 

And have made thy margin dear. 

More than this ; — thy name reminds me 
Of three friends, all true and tried; 

And that name, like magic, binds me 
Closer, closer to thy side. 

Friends my soul with joy remembers ! 

How like quivering flames they start, 
When I fan the living embers 

On the hearth-stone of my heart ! 

'T is for this, thou Silent River ! 

That m} r spirit leans to thee; 
Thou hast been a generous giver, 

Take this idle song from me. 



BLIND BARTIMEUS 

Blind Bartimeus at the gates 

Of Jericho in darkness waits; 

He hears the crowd ; — he hears a breath 

Say, " It is Christ of Nazareth ! " 

And calls, in tones of agony, 

'It)<tov, i\erja6u /m€ ! 

The thronging multitudes increase; 
Blind Bartimeus, hold thy peace ! 
But still, above the noisy crowd, 
The beggar's cry is shrill and loud; 
Until they say, " He calleth thee ! " 
®dpaer eyeipcu, (pave? ere / 

Then saith the Christ, as silent stands 
The crowd, " What wilt thou at my hands ? 
And he replies, " Oh, give me light ! 
Rabbi, restore the blind man's sight." 
And Jesus answers, "Yiraye" 
'H irlerris crov erecrooKe ere ! 

Ye that have eyes, yet cannot see, 
In darkness and in misery, 
Recall those mighty Voices Three, 

'Ir/crov, e\e-qer6v fie ! 
Qapcrer eyeipai, vvaye ! 
H tt'httis crov crecrwKe ere! 



THE GOBLET OF LIFE 

Filled is Life's goblet to the brim; 
And though my eyes with tears are dim, 
I see its sparkling bubbles swim, 
And chant a melancholy hymn 
With solemn voice and slow. 

No purple flowers, — no garlands green, 
Conceal the goblet's shade or sheen, 
Nor maddening draughts of Hippocrene> 
Like gleams of sunshine, flash between 
Thick leaves of mistletoe. 

This goblet, wrought with curious art, 
Is filled with waters, that upstart, 
When the deep fountains of the heart, 
By strong convulsions rent apart, 
Are running all to waste. 

And as it mantling passes round, 
With fennel is it wreathed and crowned, 
Whose seed and foliage sun-imbrowned 
Are in its waters steeped and drowned, 
And give a bitter taste. 

Above the lowly plants it towers, 
The fennel, with its yellow flowers, 
And in an earlier age than ours 
Was gifted with the wondrous powers, 
Lost vision to restore. 

It gave new strength, and fearless mood; 
And gladiators, fierce and rude, 
Mingled it in their daily food ; 
And he who battled and subdued, 
A wreath of fennel wore. 

Then in Life's goblet freely press 
The leaves that give it bitterness, 
Nor prize the colored waters less, 
For in thy darkness and distress 

New light and strength they give ! 

And he who has not learned to know 
How false its sparkling bubbles show, 
How bitter are the drops of woe, 
With which its brim may overflow, 
He has not learned to live. 

The prayer of Ajax was for light; 
Through all that dark and desperate fight, 
The blackness of that noonday night, 
He asked but the return of sight, 
To see his foeman's face. 



EXCELSIOR 



19 



Let our unceasing, earnest prayer 
Be, too, for light, — for strength to bear 
Our portion of the weight of care, 
That crushes into dumb despair 
One half the human race. 

O suffering, sad humanity ! 

ye afflicted ones, who lie 
Steeped to the lips in misery, 
Longing, and yet afraid to die, 

Patient, though sorely tried ! 

1 pledge you in this cup of grief, 
Where floats the fennel's bitter leaf ! 
The Battle of our Life is brief, 

The alarm, — the struggle, — the relief, 
Then sleep we side by side. 

MAIDENHOOD 

Maiden ! with the meek, brown eyes, 
In whose orbs a shadow lies 
Like the dusk in evening skies ! 

Thou whose locks outshine the sun, 
Golden tresses, wreathed in one, 
As the braided streamlets run ! 

Standing, with reluctant feet, 
Where the brook and river meet, 
Womanhood and childhood fleet ! 

Gazing, with a timid glance, 
On the brooklet's swift advance, 
On the river's broad expanse ! 

Deep and still, that gliding stream 
Beautiful to thee must seem, 
As the river of a dream. 

Then why pause with indecision, 
When bright angels in thy vision 
Beckon thee to fields Elysian ? 

Seest thou shadows sailing by, 
As the dove, with startled eye, 
Sees the falcon's shadow fly ? 

Hearest thou voices on the shore, 
That our ears perceive no more, 
Deafened by the cataract's roar ? 

Oh, thou child of many prayers ! 

Life hath quicksands, — Life hath snares ! 

Care and a^e come unawares ! 



Like the swell of some sweet tune, 
Morning rises into noon, 
May glides onward into June. 

Childhood is the bough, where slumbered 
Birds and blossoms many-numbered ; — 
Age, that bough with snows encumbered^ 

Gather, then, each flower that grows, 
When the young heart overflows, 
To embalm that tent of snows. 

Bear a lily in thy hand; 

Gates of brass cannot withstand 

One touch of that magic wand. 

Bear through sorrow, wrong, and ruth, 
In thy heart the dew of youth, 
On thy lips the smile of truth. 

Oh, that dew, like balm, shall steal 
Into wounds that cannot heal, 
Even as sleep our eyes doth seal; 

And that smile, like sunshine, dart 
Into many a sunless heart, 
For a smile of God thou art. 



EXCELSIOR 

The shades of night were falling fast, 
As through an Alpine village passed 
A youth, who bore, 'mid snow and ice, 
A banner with the strange device, 
Excelsior ! 

His brow was sad; his eye beneath, 
Flashed like a falchion from its sheath, 
And like a silver clarion rung 
The accents of that unknown tongue, 
Excelsior ! 

In happy homes he saw the light 

Of household fires gleam warm and 

bright; 
Above, the spectral glaciers shone, 
And from his lips escaped a groan, 
Excelsior ! 

" Try not the Pass ! " the old man said; 
" Dark lowers the tempest overhead, 
The roaring torrent is deep and wide ! " 
And loud that clarion voice replied, 
Excelsior ! 



20 



POEMS ON SLAVERY 



" Oh stay," the maiden said, " and rest 
Thy weary head upon this breast ! " 
A tear stood in his bright blue eye, 
But still he answered, with a sigh, 
Excelsior ! 

" Beware the pine-tree's withered branch ! 
Beware the awful avalanche ! " 
This was the peasant's last Good-night, 
A voice replied, far up the height, 
Excelsior ! 

At break of day, as heavenward 
The pious monks of Saint Bernard 



Uttered the oft-repeated prayer, 
A voice cried through the startled air, 
Excelsior ! 

A traveller, by the faithful hound, 
Half-buried in the snow was found, 
Still grasping in his hand of ice 
That banner with the strange device^ 
Excelsior ! 

There in the twilight cold and gray $ 
Lifeless, but beautiful, he lay, 
And from the sky, serene and far, 
A voice fell, like a falling star, 
Excelsior ! 



POEMS ON SLAVERY 



TO WILLIAM E. CHANNING 

The pages of thy book I read, 

And as I closed each one, 
My heart, responding, ever said, 

" Servant of God ! well done ! " 

Well done ! Thy words are great and bold: 

At times they seem to me, 
Like Luther's, in the days of old, 

Half-battles for the free. 

Go on, until this land revokes 

The old and chartered Lie, 
The feudal curse, whose whips and yokes 

Insult humanity. 

A voice is ever at thy side 

Speaking in tones of might, 
Like the prophetic voice, that cried 

To John in Patmos, "Write ! " 

Write ! and tell out this bloody tale; 

Record this dire eclipse, 
This Day of Wrath, this Endless Wail, 

This dread Apocalypse ! 



THE SLAVE'S DREAM 

Beside the iingathered rice he lay, 

His sickle in his hand; 
His breast was bare, his matted hair 

Was buried in the sand. 



Again, in the mist and shadow of sleep, 
He saw his Native Land. 

Wide through the landscape of his dreams 

The lordly Niger flowed; 
Beneath the palm-trees on the plain 

Once more a king he strode; 
And heard the tinkling caravans 

Descend the mountain road. 

He saw once more his dark-eyed queen 

Among her children stand; 
They clasped his neck, they kissed his 
cheeks, 

They held him by the hand ! — 
A tear burst from the sleeper's lids 

And fell into the sand. 

And then at furious speed he rode 

Along the Niger's bank; 
His bridle-reins were golden chains, 

And, with a martial clank, 
At each leap he could feel his scabbard of 
steel 

Smiting his stallion's flank. 

Before him, like a blood-red flag, 

The bright flamingoes flew ; 
From morn till night he followed their flight, 

O'er plains where the tamarind grew, 
Till he saw the roofs of Caffre huts, 

And the ocean rose to view. 

At night he heard the lion roar, 
And the hyena scream, 



THE SLAVE IN THE DISMAL SWAMP 



And the river - horse, as he crushed the 
reeds 

Beside some hidden stream; 
And it passed, like a glorious roll of drums, 

Through the triumph of his dream. 

The forests, with their myriad tongues, 

Shouted of liberty; 
And the Blast of the Desert cried aloud, 

With a voice so wild and free, 
That he started in his sleep and smiled 

At their tempestuous glee. 

He did not feel the driver's whip, 

Nor the burning heat of day; 
For Death had- illumined the Land of 
Sleep, 

And his lifeless body lay 
A worn-out fetter, that the soul 

Had broken and thrown away I 



THE GOOD PART 

THAT SHALL NOT BE TAKEN AWAY 

She dwells by Great Kenhawa's side, 

In valleys green and cool; 
And all her hope and all her pride 

Are in the village school. 

Her soul, like the transparent air 
That robes the hills above, 

Though not of earth, encircles there 
All things with arms of love. 

And thus she walks among her girls 
With praise and mild rebukes; 

Subduing e'en rude village churls 
By her angelic looks. 

She reads to them at eventide 
Of One who came to save ; 

To cast the captive's chains aside 
And liberate the slave. 

And oft the blessed time foretells 
When all men shall be free; 

And musical, as silver bells, 
Their falling chains shall be. 

And following her beloved Lord, 

In decent poverty, 
She makes her life one sweet record 

And deed of charity. 



For she was rich, and gave up all 

To break the iron bands 
Of those who waited in her hall, 

And labored in her lands. 

Long since beyond the Southern Sea 
Their outbound sails have sped, 

While she, in meek humility, 
Now earns her daily bread. 

It is their prayers, which never cease, 
That clothe her with such grace; 

Their blessing is the light of peace 
That shines upon her face. 



THE SLAVE IN THE DISMAL 
SWAMP 

In dark fens of the Dismal Swamp 

The hunted Negro lay ; 
He saw the fire of the midnight camp, 
And heard at times a horse's tramp 

And a bloodhound's distant bay. 

Where will-o'-the-wisps and glo\v-wornu& 
shine, 

In bulrush and in brake; 
Where waving mosses shroud the pine, 
And the cedar grows, and the poisonous vine 

Is spotted like the snake; 

Where hardly a human foot could pass, 

Or a human heart would dare, 
On the quaking turf of the green morass 
He crouched in the rank and tangled grass- 
Like a wild beast in his lair. 

A poor old slave, infirm and lame; 

Great scars deformed his face; 
On his forehead he bore the brand of shame, 
And the rags, that hid his mangled frame, 

Were the livery of disgrace. 

All things above were bright and fair, 

All things were glad and free ; 
Lithe squirrels darted here and there, 
And wild birds filled the echoing air 
With songs of Liberty ! 

On him alone was the doom of pain, 

From the morning of his birth; 
On him alone the curse of Cain 
Fell, like a flail on the garnered grain, 
And struck him to the earth ! 



£2 



POEMS ON SLAVERY 



THE SLAVE SINGING AT MID- 


Within Earth's wide domains 


NIGHT 


Are markets for men's lives ; 




Their necks are galled with chains, 


Loud he sang the psalm of David ! 


Their wrists are cramped with gyves 


He, a Negro and enslaved, 




Sang of Israel's victory, 


Dead bodies, that the kite 


Sang of Zion, bright and free. 


In deserts makes its prey; 




Murders, that with affright 


In that hour, when night is calmest, 


Scare school-boys from their play f 


Sang he frGm the Hebrew Psalmist, 




In a voice so sweet and clear 


All evil thoughts and deeds; 


That I could not choose but hear, 


Anger, and lust, and pride; 




The foulest, rankest weeds, 


Songs of triumph, and ascriptions, 


That choke Life's groaning tide ! 


Such as reached the swart Egyptians, 




When upon the Red Sea coast 


These are the woes of Slaves; 


Perished Pharaoh and his host. 


They glare from the abyss; 




They cry, from unknown graves, 


And the voice of his devotion 


" We are the Witnesses ! " 


Filled my soul with strange emotion; 




For its tones by turns were glad, 




Sweetly solemn, wildly sad. 


THE QUADROON GIRI 


Paul and Silas, in their prison, 


The Slaver in the broad lagoon 


Sang of Christ, the Lord arisen. 


Lay moored with idle sail; 


And an earthquake's arm of might 


He waited for the rising moon, 


Broke their dungeon-gates at night. 


And for the evening gale. 


But, alas ! what holy angel 


Under the shore his boat was tied 9 


Brings the Slave this glad evangel? 


And all her listless crew 


And what earthquake's arm of might 


Watched the gray alligator slide 


.Breaks his dungeon-gates at night ? 


Into the still bayou. 




Odors of orange-flowers, and spice, 


THE WITNESSES 


Reached them from time to time, 




Like airs that breathe from Paradise 


In Ocean's wide domains, 


Upon a world of crime. 


Half buried in the sands, 




Lie skeletons in chains, 


The Planter, under his roof of thatch s 


With shackled feet and hands. 


Smoked thoughtfully and slow; 




The Slaver's thumb was on the latch, 


Beyond the fall of dews, 


He seemed in haste to go. 


Deeper than plummet lies, 




Float ships, with all their crews, 


He said, " My ship at anchor rides 


No more to sink nor rise. 


In yonder broad lagoon; 




I only wait the evening tides, 


There the black Slave-ship swims, 


And the rising of the moon." 


Freighted with human forms, 




Whose fettered, fleshless limbs 


Before them, with her face upraised, 


Are not the sport of storms. 


In timid attitude, 




Like one half curious, half amazed, 


These are the bones of Slaves ; 


A Quadroon maiden stood. 


They gleam from the abyss; 




They cry, from yawning waves, 


Her eyes were large, and full of light, 


" We are the Witnesses ! " 


Her arms and neck were bare ; 



THE WARNING 



2 3 



No garment she wore save a kirtle bright, 
And her own long, raven hair. 

And on her lips there played a smile 

As holy, meek, and faint, 
As lights in some cathedral aisle 

The features of a saint. 

15 The soil is barren, — the farm is old," 

The thoughtful planter said; 
Then looked upon the Slaver's gold, 

And then upon the maid. 



His heart within him was at strife 
With such accursed gains: 

For he knew whose passions gave 
life, 
Whose blood ran in her veins. 



her 



But the voice of nature was too weak; 

He took the glittering gold ! 
Then pale as death grew the maiden's 
cheek, 

Her hands as icy cold. 

The Slaver led her from the door, 

He led her by the hand, 
To be his slave and paramour 

In a strange and distant land ! 



THE WARNING 

Beware ! The Israelite of old, who tore 
The lion in his path, — when, poor and 
blind, 
He saw the blessed light of heaven no mor°, 
Shorn of his noble strength and forced to 
grind 
In prison, and at last led forth to be 
A pander to Philistine revelry, — 

Upon the pillars of the temple laid 

His desperate hands, and in its overthrow 
Destroyed himself, and with him those who 
made 
A cruel mockery of his sightless woe; 
The poor, blind Slave, the scoff and jest of 

all, 
Expired, and thousands perished in the fall! 

There is a poor, blind Samson in this land, 
Shorn of his strength and bound in bonds 
of steel, 
Who may, in some grim revel, raise his hand, 
And shake the pillars of this Common- 
weal, 
Till the vast Temple of our liberties 
A shapeless mass of wreck and rubbish lies 



THE SPANISH STUDENT 



DRAMATIS PERSONS 



Victorian) Students of Alcala. 

Hypolito I J 



Gentlemen of Madrid. 



The Count op Laba ) 
Don Carlos ) ' ' 

The Archbishop of Toledo. 
A Cardinal. 

Beltran Cruz ado Count of the Gypsies. 

Bartolome Roman . . . . A young Gypsy. 
The Padre Cura oy Guadarbama. 
Pedro Cbespo Alcalde. 



Pancho Alguacil. 

Francisco Lara's Servant. 

Chispa Victorian's Servant. 

Baltasar Innkeeper. 

Preciosa A Gypsy Girl. 

Angelica A poor Girl. 

Martina The Padre Curat. 

Niece. 
Dolobes ......... Preciosa's Maid. 

Gypsies, Musicians, etc. 



ACT I 

Scene I. — The Count op Laba's chambers. Night. 
The Count in his dressing-gown, smoking and con- 
versing with Don Caelos. 

Lara. You were not at the play to-night, 

Don Carlos; 
How happened it ? 

Don C. I had engagements elsewhere. 
Pray who was there ? 

Lara. Why, all the town and court. 

The house was crowded; and the busy fans 
Among the gayly dressed and perfumed 

ladies 
Fluttered like butterflies among the flowers. 
There was the Countess of Medina Celi; 
The Goblin Lady with her Phantom Lover, 
Her Lindo Don Diego ; Dona Sol, 
And Dona Serafina, and her cousins. 
Don C. What was the play ? 
Lara. It was a dull affair; 

One of those comedies in which you see, 
As Lope says, the history of the world 
Brought down from Genesis to the day of 

Judgment. 
There were three duels fought in the first 

act, 
Three gentlemen receiving deadly wounds, 
Laying their hands upon their hearts, and 

saying, 
u Oh, I am dead ! " a lover in a closet, 
An old hidalgo, and a gay Don Juan, 
A Dona Inez with a black mantilla, 
Followed at twilight by an unknown lover, 
Who looks intently where he knows she is 

not! 
Don C. Of course, the Preciosa danced 

to-night ? 
Lara. And never better. Every foot- 
step fell 
As lightly as a sunbeam on the water. 
I think the girl extremely beautiful. 



Don C. Almost beyond the privilege of 
woman ! 
I saw her in the Prado yesterday. 
Her step was royal, — queen-like, — and 

her face 
As beautiful as a saint's in Paradise. 

Lara. May not a saint fall from her 
Paradise,- 
And be no more a saint ? 

Don C. Why do you ask ? 

Lara. Because I have heard it said this 
angel fell, 
And though she is a virgin outwardly, 
Within she is a sinner; like those panels 
Of doors and altar-pieces the old monks 
Painted in convents, with the Virgin Mary 
On the outside, and on the inside Venus ! 

Don C. You do her wrong ; indeed, you 
do her wrong ! 
She is as virtuous as she is fair. 

Lara. How credulous you are ! Why, 
look you, friend, 
There 's not a virtuous woman in Madrid, 
In this whole city ! And would you per- 
suade me 
That a mere dancing-girl, who shows herself, 
Nightly, half naked, on the stage, for money, 
And with voluptuous motions fires the blood 
Of inconsiderate youth, is to be held 
A model for her virtue ? 

Don C. You forget 

She is a Gypsy girl. 

Lara. And therefore won 

The easier. 

Don C. Nay, not to be won at all ! 
The only virtue that a Gypsy prizes 
Is chastity. That is her only virtue. 
Dearer than life she holds it. I remember 
A Gypsy woman, a vile, shameless bawd, 
Whose craft was to betray the young and 

fair; 
And yet this woman was above all bribes. 



THE SPANISH STUDENT 



2£ 



And when a noble lord, touched by her 

beauty, 
The wild and wizard beauty of her race, 
Offered her gold to be what she made 

others, 
She turned upon him, with a look of scorn, 
And smote him in the face ! 

Lara. And does that prove 

That Preciosa is above suspicion ? 

Don C. It proves a nobleman may be 
repulsed 
When he thinks conquest easy. I believe 
That woman, in her deepest degradation, 
Holds something sacred, something unde- 
fined, 
Some pledge and keepsake of her higher 

nature, 
And, like the diamond in the dark, retains 
Some quenchless gleam of the celestial 
light ! 
Lara. Yet Preciosa would have taken 

the gold. 
Don C. (rising). I do not think so. 
Lara. I am sure of it. 

But why this haste ? Stay yet a little 

longer, 
And fight the battles of your Dulcinea. 
Don C. 'T is late. 1 must begone, for 
if I stay 
You will not be persuaded. 
Lara. Yes ; persuade me. 

Don C. No one so deaf as he who will 

not hear ! 
Lara. No one so blind as he who will not 

see ! 
Don C. And so good night. I wish you 
pleasant dreams, 
*nd greater faith in woman. [Exit. 

Lara. Greater faith ! 

I have the greatest faith ; for I believe 
Victorian is her lover. I believe 
That I shall be to-morrow ; and thereafter 
Another, and another, and another, 
Chasing each other through her zodiac, 
As Taurus chases Aries. 

{Enter Francisco with a casket.) 

Well, Francisco, 
What speed with Preciosa ? 

Fran. None, my lord. 

She sends your jewels back, and bids me 

tell you 
She is not to be purchased by your gold. 
Lara. Then I will try some other way to 
win her. 
l^ay, dost thou know Victorian ? 



Fran. Yes, my lord ; 

I saw him at the jeweller's to-day. 

Lara. What was he doing there ? 

Fran. I saw him buy 

A golden ring, that had a ruby in it. 

Lara. Was there another like it ? 

Fran. One so like if 

I could not choose between them. 

Lara. It is well. 

To-morrow morning bring that ring to me. 
Do not forget. Now light me to my bed. 

{Exeunt. 

Scene II. — A street in Madrid. Enter Chispa, fol- 
lowed by musicians, with a bagpipe, guitars, and 
other instruments. 

Chispa. Abernuncio Satanas ! and a 
plague on all lovers who ramble about at 
night drinking the elements, instead of 
sleeping quietly in their beds. Every 
dead man to Ins cemetery, say I ; an? 
every friar to his monastery. Now, here V 
my master, Victorian, yesterday a cow 
keeper, and to-day a gentleman ; yesterday 
a student, and to-day a lover ; and I must 
be up later than the nightingale, for as the 
abbot sings so must the sacristan respond. 
God grant he may soon be married, for 
then shall all this serenading cease. Ay, 
marry ! marry ! marry ! Mother, what 
does marry mean ? It means to spin, to 
bear children, and to weep, my daughter ! 
And, of a truth, there, is something more 
in matrimony than the wedding-ring. {To 
the musicians.) And now, gentlemen, Par. 
vobiscum ! as the ass said to the cabbages. 
Pray, walk this way ; and don't hang down 
your heads. It is no disgrace to have an 
old father and a ragged shirt. Now, lool( 
you, you are gentlemen who lead the lift 
of crickets ; you enjoy hunger by day and 
noise by night. Yet, I beseech you, for 
this once be not loud, but pathetic ; for it 
is a serenade to a damsel in bed, and not to 
the Man in the Moon. Your object ig not 
to arouse and terrify, but to soothe and 
bring lulling dreams. Therefore, each 
shall not play upon his instrument as if it 
were the only one in the universe, but 
gently, and with a certain modesty, ac- 
cording with the others. Pray, how may I 
call thy name, friend ? 

First Mus. Gerdnimo Gil, at your ser- 
vice. 

Chispa. Every tub smells of the wine 



26 



THE SPANISH STUDENT 



that is in it. Pray, Gerdnimo, is not Satur- 
day an unpleasant day with thee ? 

First Mus. Why so ? 

Chispa. Because I have heard it said 
that Saturday is an unpleasant day with 
those who have but one shirt. Moreover, 
I have seen thee at the tavern, and if thou 
canst run as fast as thou canst drink, I 
should like to hunt hares with thee. What 
instrument is that ? 

First Mus. An Aragonese bagpipe. 

Chispa. Pray, art thou related to the bag- 
piper of Bujalance, who asked a maravedi 
for playing, and ten for leaving off ? 

First Mus. No, your honor. 

Chispa. I am glad of it. What other 
instruments have we ? 

Second and Third Musicians. We play 
the bandurria. 

Chispa. A pleasing instrument. And 
thou? 

Fourth Mus. The fife. 

Chispa. I like it ; it has a cheerful, soul- 
stirring sound, that soars up to my lady's 
window like the song of a swallow. And 
you others ? 

Other Mus. We are the singers, please 
your honor. 

Chispa. You are too many. Do you 
think we are going to sing mass in the 
cathedral of C<5rdova ? Four men can 
make but little use of one shoe, and I see 
not how you can all sing in one song. But 
follow me along the garden wall. That is 
the way my master climbs to the lady's 
window. It is by the Vicar's skirts that 
the Devil climbs into the belfry. Come, 
follow me, and make no noise. [Exeunt. 



Scene III. — Preciosa's chamber. She stands at the 
open window. 

Free. How slowly through the lilac- 
scented air 

Descends the tranquil moon ! Like thistle- 
down 

The vapory clouds float in the peaceful 
sky ; 

And sweetly from yon hollow vaults of 
shade 

The nightingales breathe out their souls in 
song. 

And hark ! what songs of love, what soul- 
like sounds, 

Answer them from below ! 



Stars of the summer night ! 

Far in yon azure deeps, 
Hide, hide your golden light I 

She sleeps ! 
My lady sleeps I 

Sleeps I 

Moon of the summer night ! 

Far down yon western steeps, 
Sink, sink in silver light I 

She sleeps ! 
My lady sleeps ! 
Sleeps I 

Wind of the summer night \ 

Where yonder woodbine creeps, 

Fold, fold thy pinions light ! 
She sleeps ! 

My lady sleeps I 
Sleeps ! 

Dreams of the summer night ! 

Tell her, her lover keeps 
Watch ! while in slumbers light 

She sleeps ! 
My lady sleeps I 

Sleeps ! 

(Enter Victorian by the balcony.) 

Vict. Poor little dove ! Thou trembles? 

like a leaf ! 
Prec. I am so frightened I 'T is for thee 
I tremble ! 
I hate to have thee climb that wall by 

night ! 
Did no one see thee ? 

Vict. None, my love, but thou. 

Prec. 'T is very dangerous ; and when 
thou art gone 
I chide myself for letting thee come here 
Thus stealthily by night. Where hast thou 

been ? 
Since yesterday I have no news from thee. 
Vict. Since yesterday I have been in 
Alcala. 
Erelong the time will come, sweet Preciosa, 
When that dull distance shall no more di- 
vide us ; 
And I no more shall scale thy wall by night 
To steal a kiss from thee, as I do now. 
Prec. An honest thief, to steal but what 

thou givest. 
Vict. And we shall sit together unmo- 
lested, 
And words of true love pass from tongue 

to tongue, 
As singing birds from one bough to an< 
other. 



THE SPANISH STUDENT 



V 



Prec. That were a life to make time 
envious ! 
I knew that thou wouldst come to me to- 
night. 
I saw thee at the play. 

Vict. Sweet child of air ! 

Never did I behold thee so attired 
And garmented in beaut}' as to-night ! 
What hast thou done to make thee look so 
fair? 
Prec. Ami not always fair ? 
Vict. Ay, and so fair 

That I am jealous of all eyes that see thee, 
And wish that they were blind. 

Prec. I heed them not ; 

When thou art present, I see none but 
thee! 
Vict. There 's nothing fair nor beautiful, 
but takes 
Something from thee, that makes it beauti- 
ful. 
Prec. And yet thou leavest me for those 

dusty books. 
Vict. Thou comest between me and those 
books too often ! 
I see thy face in everything I see ! 
The paintings in the chapel wear thy looks, 
The canticles are changed to sarabands, 
\nd with the learned doctors of the schools 
I see thee dance cachuchas. 

Prec. In good sooth, 

I dance with learned doctors of the schools 
To-morrow morning. 

Vict. And with whom, I pray ? 
Prec. A grave and reverend Cardinal, 
and his Grace 
The Archbishop of Toledo. 

Vict. What mad jest 

'< this ? 

Prec. It is no jest ; indeed it is not. 
Vict. Prithee, explain thyself. 
Prec. Why, simply thus. 

Tbou knowest the Pope has sent here into 

Spain 
To put a stop to dances on the stage. 
Vict. I have heard it whispered. 
Prec. Now the Cardinal, 

Who for this purpose comes, would fain 

behold 
With his own eyes these dances ; and the 

Archbishop 
Has sent for me — 

Vict. That thou mayest dance before 
them ! 
(Tow viva la cachucha ! It will breathe 



The fire of youth into these gray old men 1 
'T will be thy proudest conquest ! 

Prec. Saving one. 

And yet I fear these dances will be stopped. 
And Preciosa be once more a beggar. 
Vict. The sweetest beggar that e'er asked 
for alms ; 
With such beseeching eyes, that when I 

saw thee 
I gave my heart away ! 

Prec. Dost thou remembei 

When first we met ? 

Vict. It was at Cdrdova, 

In the cathedral garden. Thou wast sit- 
ting 
Under the orange trees, beside a fountain. 
Prec. 'T was Easter Sunday. The full- 
blossomed trees 
Filled all the air with fragrance and with 

joy. 

The priests were singing, and the organ 
sounded, 

And then anon the great cathedral bell. 

It was the elevation of the Host. 

We both of us fell down upon our knees, 

Under the orange boughs, and prayed to- 
gether. 

I never had been happy till that moment. 
Vict. Thou blessed angel ! 
Prec. And when thou wast gone 

I felt an aching here. I did not speak 

To any one that day. But from that day 

Bartolome' grew hateful unto me. 

Vict. Remember him no more. Let not 
his shadow 

Come between thee and me. Sweet Pre- 
ciosa ! 

I loved thee even then, though I was silent! 
Prec. I thought I ne'er should see thy 
face again. 

Thy farewell had a sound of sorrow in it. 
Vict. That was the first sound in the 
song of love ! 

Scarce more than silence is, and yet a 
sound. 

Hands of invisible spirits touch the strings 

Of that mysterious instrument, the soul, 

And play the prelude of our fate. We heal 

The voice prophetic, and are not alone. 
Prec. That is my faith. Dost thou be- 
lieve these warnings ? 
Vict. So far as this. Our feelings and 
our thoughts 

Tend ever on, and rest not in the Present. 

As drops of rain fall into some dark well. 



28 



THE SPANISH STUDEN r 



And from below comes a scarce audible 
sound, 

So fall our thoughts into the dark Here- 
after, 

And their mysterious echo reaches us. 
Prec. I have felt it so, but found no 
words to say it ! 

I cannot reason ; I can only feel ! 

But thou hast language for all thoughts 
and feelings. 

Thou art a scholar; and sometimes I think 

We cannot walk together in this world ! 

The distance that divides us is too great ! 

Henceforth thy pathway lies among the 
stars ; 

I must not hold thee back, 



Vict. 



Thou little scepti 



Dost thou still doubt ? What I most prize 
in woman 

Is her affections, not her intellect ! 

The intellect is finite ; but the affections 

Are infinite, and cannot be exhausted. 

Compare me with the great men of the 
earth ; 

What am I ? Why, a pygmy among 
giants ! 

But if thou lovest, — mark me ! I say 
lovest, — 

The greatest of thy sex excels thee not ! 

The world of the affections is thy world, 

Not that of man's ambition. In that still- 
ness 

Which most becomes a woman, calm and 
holy, 

Thou sittest by the fireside of the heart, 

Feeding its flame. The element of fire 

Is pure. It cannot change nor hide its na- 
ture, 

But burns as brightly in a Gypsy camp 

As in a palace hall. Art thou convinced ? 
Prec. Yes, that I love thee, as the good 
love heaven ; 

But not that I am worthy of that heaven. 

How shall I more deserve it ? 

Vict. Loving more. 

Prec. I cannot love thee more ; my heart 

is full. 
Vict. Then let it overflow, and I will 
drink it, 

As in the summer-time the thirsty sands 

Drink the swift waters of the Manzanares, 

And still do thirst for more. 

A Watchman (in the street). Ave Maria 
Purissima ! 'T is midnight and serene ! 
Vict. Hear'st thou that cry ? 



Prec. It is a hateful sound, 

To scare thee from me ! 

Vict. As the hunter's horn 

Doth scp.re the timid stag, or bark o% 

hounds 
The moor-fowl from his mate. 

Prec. Pray, do not go ! 

Vict. I must away to Alcald to-night. 
Think of me when I am away. 

Prec. Fear not ! 

I have no thoughts that do not think oi 
thee. 
Vict, {giving her a ring). And to remind 
thee of my love, take this ; 
A serpent, emblem of Eternity ; 
A ruby, — say, a drop of my heart's blood. 
Prec. It is an ancient saying, that the 
ruby 
Brings gladness to the wearer, and pre* 

serves 
The heart pure, and, if laid beneath tho 

pillow, 
Drives away evil dreams. But then, alas ! 
It was a serpent tempted Eve to sin. 

Vict. What convent of barefooted Car- 
melites 
Taught thee so much theology ? 

Prec. {laying her hand upon his mouth). 
Hush ! hush ! 
Good night ! and may all holy angels guard 
thee ! 
Vict. Good night ! good night ! Thou 
art my guardian angel ! 
I have no other saint than thou to pray to f 
{He descends by the balcony.) 
Prec. Take care, and do not hurt thee. 

Art thou safe ? 
Vict, {from the garden). Safe as my 
love for thee ! But art thou safe ? 
Others can climb a balcony by moonlight 
As well as I. Pray shut thy window close; 
I am jealous of the perfumed air of night 
That from this garden climbs to kiss thy 
lips. 
Prec. {throwing down her handkerchief). 
Thou silly child ! Take this to blind 
thine eyes. 
It is my benison ! 

Vict. And brings to me 

Sweet fragrance from thy lips, as the soft 

wind 
Wafts to the out-bound mariner the breath 
Of the beloved land he leaves behind. 
Prec. Make not thy voyage long. 
Vict. To-morrow nighi 



THE SPANISH STUDENT 



29 



Shall see me safe returned. Thou art the 

star 
To guide me to an anchorage. Good night ! 
My beauteous star ! My star of love, good 
night ! 
Prec. Good right ! 

Watchman (at a distance). Ave Maria 
Purissima ! 

Scene IV. — An inn on the road to Alcala. Baltasar 
asleep on a bench. Enter Chispa. 

Chispa. And here we are, half-way to 
Alcaic, between cocks and midnight. Body 
o' me ! what an inn this is ! The lights 
out, and the landlord asleep. Hold, ! an- 
cient Baltasar ! 

Bal. (leaking). Here I am. 

Chispa. Yes, there you are, like a one- 
syed Alcalde in a town without inhabitants. 
Bring a light, and let me have supper. 

Bal. Where is your master ? 

Chispa. Do not trouble yourself about 
him. We have stopped a moment to 
breathe our horses ; and if he chooses to 
walk up and down in the open air, looking 
into the sky as one who hears it rain, that 
does not satisfy my hunger, you know. But 
be quick, for I am in a hurry, and every 
man stretches his legs according to the 
length of his coverlet. What have we 
here ? 

Bal. (setting a light on the table). Stewed 
rabbit. 

Chispa (eating). Conscience of Portale- 
gre ! Stewed kitten, you mean ! 

Bal. And a pitcher of Pedro Ximenes, 
*rith a roasted pear in it. 

Chispa (drinking). Ancient Baltasar, 
amigo ! You know how to cry wine and 
sell vinegar. I tell you this is nothing but 
Vinto Tinto of La Mancha, with a tang of 
the swine-skin. 

Bal. I swear to you by Saint Simon and 
Judas, it is all as I say. 

Chispa. And I swear to you by Saint 
Peter and Saint Paul, that it is no such 
thing. Moreover, your supper is like the 
hidalgo's dinner, very little meat and a 
great deal of tablecloth. 

Bal. Ha ! ha ! ha ! 

Chispa. And more noise than nuts. 

Bal. Ha ! ha ! ha ! You must have your 
joke, Master Chispa. But shall I not ask 
I)on Victorian in, to take a draught of the 
Pedro Ximenes ? 



Chispa. No ; you might as well say, 
" Don't-you-want-some ? " to a dead man. 

Bal. Why does he go so often to Madrid ? 

Chispa. For the same reason that he 
eats no supper. He is in love. Were yoT 
ever in love, Baltasar ? 

Bal. I was never out of it, good Chispa. 
It has been the torment of my life. 

Chispa. What ! are you on fire, too, old 
haystack ? Why, we shall never be able 
to put you out. 

Vict, (ivithout). Chispa ! 

Chispa. Go to bed, Pero Grullo, for the 
cocks are crowing. 

Vict. Ea! Chispa! Chispa! 

Chispa. Ea ! Seiior. Come with me 
ancient Baltasar, and bring water for the 
horses. I will pay for the supper to- 
morrow. \Exeun, 

Scene V. — Victorian's chambers at Alcala. Hypolitc 
asleep in an arm-chair. He awakes sloivly. 

Hyp. I must have been asleep ! ay, sound 

asleep ! 
And it was all a dream. O sleep, sweet 

sleep ! 
Whatever form thou takest, thou art fair, 
Holding unto our lips thy goblet rilled 
Out of Oblivion's well, a healing draught ! 
The candles have burned low ; it must be 

late. 
Where can Victorian be ? Like Fray Car- 

rillo, 
The only place in which one cannot find him 
Is his own cell. Here 's his guitar, thai 

seldom 
Feels the caresses of its master's hand. 
Open thy silent lips, sweet instrument ! 
And make dull midnight merry with. C 

song. 

{He plays and sings.) 

Padre Francisco ! 

Padre Francisco ! 

What do you want of Padre Francisco ? 

Here is a pretty young maiden 

Who wants to confess her sins I 

Open the door and let her come in, 

I will shrive her of every sin. 

(Enter Victorian.) 

Vict. Padre Hypolito ! Padre Hypolito ? 

Hyp. What do you want of Padre Hy- 
polito ? 

Vict. Come, shrive me straight; for/. *^ 
love be a sin, 



3© 



THE SPANISH STUDENT 



I am the greatest sinner that doth live. 
I will confess the sweetest of all crimes, 
A maiden wooed and won. 

Hyp. The same old tale 

Of the old woman in the chimney-corner, 
Who, while the pot boils, says, " Come 

here, my child ; 
X '11 tell thee a story of my wedding-day." 
Vict. Nay, listen, for my heart is full ; 
so full 
That I must speak. 

Hyp. Alas ! that heart of thine 

Is like a scene in the old play ; the curtain 
Rises to solemn music, and lo ! enter 
The eleven thousand virgins of Cologne ! 
Vict. Nay, like the Sibyl's volumes, thou 
shouldst say ; 
Those that remained, after the six were 

burned, 
Being held more precious than the nine 

together. 
But listen to my tale. Dost thou remember 
The Gypsy girl we saw at Cdrdova 
Dance the Ronialis in the market-place ? 
Hyp. Thou meanest Preciosa. 
Vict. Ay, the same. 

Thou knowest how her image haunted me 
Long after we returned to Alcala. 
She 's in Madrid. 

Hyp. I know it. 

Vict. And I 'm in love. 

Hyp. And therefore in Madrid when 
thou shouldst be 
In Alcala. 

Vict. Oh pardon me, my friend, 

If I so long have kept this secret from 

thee ; 
But silence is the charm that guards such 

treasures, 
And, if a word be spoken ere the time, 
They sink again, they were not meant for us. 
Hyp. Alas ! alas ! I see thou art in love. 
Love keeps the cold out better than a cloak. 
It serves for food and raiment. Give a 

Spaniard 
His mass, his olla, and his Dona Luisa — 
Thou knowest the proverb. But pray tell 

me, lover, 
How speeds thy wooing ? Is the maiden 

coy? 
Write her a song, beginning with an Ave ; 
Sing as the monk sang to the Virgin Mary, 

Ave! cujus calcem clare 
Nee centenni commendare 
Sciret Seraph studio ! 



Vict. Pray, do not jest ! This is no time 
for it ! 
I am in earnest ! 

Hyp. Seriously enamored ? 

What, ho ! The Primus of great Alcala 
Enamored of a Gypsy ? Tell me frankly, 
How meanest thou ? 

Vict. I mean it honestly. 

Hyp. Surely thou wilt not marry her ! 
Vict. Why not ? 

Hyp. She was betrothed to one Bartol- 
ome', 
If I remember rightty, a young Gypsy 
Who danced with her at Cdrdova. 

Vict. They quarrelled, 

And so the matter ended. 

Hyp. But in truth 

Thou wilt not marry her. 

Vict. In truth I will. 

The angels sang in heaven when she was 

born ! 
She is a precious jewel I have found 
Among the filth and rubbish of the world. 
I '11 stoop for it ; but when I wear it 

here, 
Set on rny forehead like the morning star, 
The world may wonder, but it will not 
laugh. 
Hyp. If thou wear'st nothing else upon 
thy forehead, 
'T will be indeed a wonder. 

Vict. Out upon thee 

With thy unseasonable jests ! Pray tell 

me, 
Is there no virtue in the world ? 

Hyp. Not much. 

What, think'st thou, is she doing at this 

moment ; 
Now, while we speak of her ? 

Vict. She lies asleep, 

And from her parted lips her gentle breath 
Comes like the fragrance from the lips of 

flowers. 
Her tender limbs are still, and on her 

breast 
The cross she prayed to, ere she fell asleep, 
Rises and falls with the soft tide of dreams, 
Like a light barge safe moored. 

Hyp. Which means, in prose. 

She 's sleeping with her mouth a little open J 
Vict. Oh, would I had the old magician's 
glass 
To see hev as she lies in child-like sleep ! 
Hyp. And wouldst thou venture ? 
Vict. Ay, indeed I would i 



THE SPANISH STUDENT 



3* 



Hyp. Thou art courageous. Hast thou 
e'er reflected 

How much lies hidden iu that one word, 
now? 
Vict. Yes ; all the awful mystery of Life ! 

I oft have thought, my dear Hypolito, 

That could we, by some spell of magic, 
change 

The world and its inhabitants to stone, 

In the same attitudes they now are in, 

What fearful glances downward might we 
cast 

Into the hollow chasms of human life ! 

What groups should we behold about the 
death-bed, 

Putting to shame the group of Niobe ! 

What joyful welcomes, and what sad fare- 
wells ! 

What stony tears in those congealed eyes ! 

What visible joy or anguish in those 
cheeks ! 

What bridal pomps, and what funereal 
shows ! 

What foes, like gladiators, fierce and strug- 
gling ! 

What lovers with their marble lips to- 
gether ! 
Hyp. Ay, there it is ! and, if I were in 
love, 

That is the very point I most should dread. 

This magic glass, these magic spells of 
thine, 

Might tell a tale were better left untold. 

For instance, they might show us thy fair 
cousin, 

The Lady Violante, bathed in tears 

Of love and anger, like the maid of Col- 
chis, 

Whom thou, another faithless Argonaut, 

Having won that golden fleece, a woman's 
love, 

Desertest for this Glauce. 

Vict. Hold thy peace ! 

She cares not for me. She may wed an- 
other, 

Or go into a convent, and, thus dying, 

Marry Achilles in the Elysian Fields. 

Hyp. (rising). And so, good night ! 
Good morning, I should say. 
(Clock strikes three.) 

Hark ! how the loud and ponderous mace 

of Time 
Knocks at the golden portals of the day ! 
And so, once more, good night ! We '11 

speak more largely 



Of Preciosa when we meet again. 
Get thee to bed, and the magician, Sleep, 
Shall show her to thee, in bis magic glass, 
In all her loveliness. Good night ! [Exit. 
Vict. Good night ! 

But not to bed ; for I must read awhile. 

(Throws himself into the arm-chair which Hypolito 
has left, and lays a large book open upon his knees.) 

Must read, or sit in revery and watch 
The changing color of the waves that break 
Upon the idle sea-shore of the mind ! 
Visions of Fame ! that once did visit me, 
Making night glorious with your smile, 

where are ye ? 
Oh, who shall give me, now that ye are 

gone, 
Juices of those immortal plants that bloom 
Upon Olympus, making us immortal ? 
Or teach me where that wondrous man- 
drake grows 
Whose magic root, torn from the earth with 

groans, 
At midnight hour, can scare the fiends 

away, 
And make the mind prolific in its fancies ? 
1 have the wish, but want the will, to act ! 
Souls of great men departed ! Ye whose 

words 
Have come to light from the swift river of 

Time, 
Like Roman swords found in the Tagus' 

bed, 
Where is the strength to wield the arms ye 

bore ? 
From the barred visor of Antiquity 
Reflected shines the eternal light of Truth, 
As from a mirror ! All the means of 

action — 
The shapeless masses, the materials — 
Lie everywhere about us. What we need 
Is the celestial fire to change the flint 
Into transparent crystal, bright and clear. 
That fire is genius ! The rude peasant sits 
At evening in his smoky cot, and draws 
With charcoal uncouth figures on the wall. 
The son of genius comes, foot-sore with 

travel, 
And begs a shelter from the inclement 

night. 
He takes the charcoal from the peasant's 

hand, 
And, by the magic of his touch at once 
Transfigured, all its hidden virtues shine, 
And, in the eyes of the astonished clown, 



3 2 



THE SPANISH STUDENT 



It gleams a diamond ! Even thus trans- 
formed, 
Rude popular traditions and old tales 
Shine as immortal poems, at the touch 
Of some poor, houseless, homeless, wander- 
ing bard, 
Who had but a night's lodging for his 

pains. 
But there are brighter dreams than those 

of Fame, 
Which are the dreams of Love ! Out of 

the heart 
Rises the bright ideal of these dreams, 
As from some woodland fount a spirit rises 
And sinks again into its silent deeps, 
Ere the enamored knight can touch her 

robe ! " 

'T is this ideal that the soul of man, 
Like the enamored knight beside the foun- 
tain, 
Waits for upon the margin of Life's 

stream ; 
Waits to behold her rise from the dark 

waters, 
Clad in a mortal shape ! A,las ! how many 
Must wait in vain ! The stream flows ever- 
more, 
But from its silent deeps no spirit rises ! 
Yet I, born under a propitious star, 
Have found the bright ideal of my dreams. 
Yes ! she is ever with me. I can feel, 
Here, as I sit at midnight and alone, 
Her gentle breathing ! on my breast can 

feel 
The pressure of her head ! God's benison 
Rest ever on it ! Close those beauteous 

eyes, 
Sweet Sleep ! and all the flowers that bloom 

at night 
With balmy lips breathe in her ears my 
name ! 

{Gradually sinks asleep.) 



ACT II 

Jcenb I. — Peeciosa's chamber. Morning. Peeciosa 
and Angelica. 

Prec. Why will you go so soon ? Stay 

yet awhile. 
The poor too often turn away unheard 
From hearts that shut against them with a 

sound 
That will be heard in heaven. Pray, tell 

me more 



Of your adversities. Keep nothing from 

me. 
What is your landlord's name ? 

Ang. The Count of Lara. 

Prec. The Count of Lara ? Oh, beware 
that man ! 
Mistrust his pity, — hold no parley with 

him ! 
And rather die an outcast in the streets 
Than touch his gold. 

Ang. You know him, then ! 

Prec. As much 

As any woman may, and yet be pure. 
As you would keep your name without a 

blemish, 
Beware of him ! 

Ang. Alas ! what can I do ? 

I cannot choose my friends. Each word of 

kindness, 
Come whence it may, is welcome to the poor. 
Prec. Make me your friend. A girl so 
young and fair 
Should have no friends but those of her 

own sex. 
What is your name ? 

Ang. Angelica. 

Prec. That name 

Was given you, that you might be an angel 
To her who bore you ! When your infant 

smile 
Made her home Paradise, you were her 

angel. 
Oh, be an angel still ! She needs that smile- 
So long as you are innocent, fear nothing. 
No one can harm you ! I am a poor g ; rl, 
Whom chance has taken from the public 

streets. 
I have no other shield than mine own 

virtue. 
That is the charm which has protected me ! 
Amid a thousand perils, I have worn it 
Here on my heart ! It is my guardian angel. 
Ang. (rising). I thank you for this 

counsel, dearest lady. 
Prec. Thank me by following it. 
Ang. Indeed I will. 

Prec. Pray, do not go. I have much 

more to say. 
Ang. My mother is alone. I dare not 

leave her. 
Prec. Some other time, then, when we 
meet again. 
You must not go away with words alone. 

(Gives her a purse.) 
Take this. Would it were more. 



THE SPANISH STUDENT 



33 



Ang. 

Prec. No thanks. 



I thank you, lady. 
To-morrow come to 



me again, 
t dance to-night, — perhaps for the last 

time. 
But what I gain, I promise shall be yours, 
If that can save you from the Count of 
Lara. 
Ang. Oh, my dear lady ! how shall I be 
grateful 
For so much kindness ? 

Prec. I deserve no thanks. 

Thank Heaven, not me. 

Ang. Both Heaven and you. 

Prec. Farewell. 

Remember that you come again to-morrow. 
Ang. I will. And may the Blessed Vir- 
gin guard you, 
And all good angels. {Exit. 

Prec. May they guard thee too, 

And all the poor ; for they have need of 

angels. 
Now bring me, dear Dolores, my basquina, 
My richest maja dress, — my dancing dress, 
And my most precious jewels ! Make me 

look 
Fairer than night e'er saw me ! I've a 

prize 
To win this day, worthy of Preciosa ! 
(Enter Beltran Cruz ado.) 
Cruz. Ave Maria ! 

Prec. O God ! my evil genius ! 

What seekest thou here to-day ? 

Cruz. Thyself, — my child. 

Prec. What is thy will with me ? 
Cruz. Gold ! gold ! 

Prec. I gave thee yesterday ; I have no 

more. 
Cruz. The gold of the Busne*, — give me 

his gold ! 
Prec. I gave the last in charity to-day. 
Cruz. That is a foolish lie. 
Prec. It is the truth. 

Cruz. Curses upon thee ! Thou art not 
my child ! 
Hast thou given gold away, and not to me ? 
Not to thy father ? To whom, then ? 

Prec. To one 

Who needs it more. 

Cruz. No one can need it more. 

Prec. Thou art not poor. 

Cruz. What, I, who lurk about 

In dismal snburbs and unwholesome lanes ; 

I f who am housed worse than the galley 

slave : 



I, who am fed worse than the kennelled 

hound ; 
I, who am clothed in rags, — Beltran Cru- 

zado, — 
Not poor ! 

Prec. Thou hast a stout heart and strong 

hands. 
Thou canst supply thy wants ; what wouldst 

thou more ? 
Cruz. The gold of the Busne* ! give me 

his gold ! 
Prec. Beltran Cruzado ! hear me once 

for all. 
I speak the truth. So long as I had gold, 
I gave it to thee freely, at all times, 
Never denied thee ; never had a wish 
But to fulfil thine own. Now go in peace 1 
Be merciful, be patient, and erelong 
Thou shalt have more. 

Cruz. And if I have it not, 

Thou shalt no longer dwell here in rich 

chambers, 
Wear silken dresses, feed on dainty food, 
And live in idleness ; but go with me, 
Dance the Romalis in the public streets, 
And wander wild again o'er field and 

fell; 
For here we stay not long. 

Prec. What ! march again ? 

Cruz. Ay, with all speed. I hate the 

crowded town ! 
I cannot breathe shut up within its gates ! 
Air, — I want air, and sunshine, and blue 

sky, 
The feeling of the breeze upon my face, 
The feeling of the turf beneath my feet, 
And no walls but the far-off mountain- 
tops. 
Then I am free and strong, — once more 

myself, 
Beltran Cruzado, Count of the Cal^s ! 
Prec. God speed thee on thy march ! — 

I cannot go. 
Cruz. Remember who I am, and whc 

thou art ! 
Be silent and obey ! Yet one thing more. 
Bartolome" Roman — 

Prec. {with emotion). Oh, I beseech thee ! 
If my obedience and blameless life, 
If my humility and meek submission 
In all things hitherto, can move in thee 
One feeling of compassion ; if thou art 
Indeed my father, and canst trace in me 
One look of her who bore me, or one tone 
That doth remind thee of her, let it plead 



34 



THE SPANISH STUDENT 



In my behalf, who am a feeble girl, 
Too feeble to resist, and do not force me 
To wed that man ! I am afraid of him ! 
I do not love him ! On my knees I beg 

thee 
To use no violence, nor do in haste 
What cannot be undone ! 

Cruz. O child, child, child ! 

Thou hast betrayed thy secret, as a bird 
Betrays her nest, by striving to conceal it. 
I will not leave thee here in the great city 
To be a grandee's mistress. Make thee 

ready 
To go with us ; and until then remember 
A watchful eye is on thee. [Exit. 

Prec. Woe is me ! 

I have a strange misgiving in my heart ! 
But that one deed of charity I '11 do, 
Befall what may ; they cannot take that 

from me. 

Scene II. — A room in the Archbishop's Palace. The 
Archbishop and a Cardinal seated. 

Arch. Knowing how near it touched the 
public morals, 
And that our age is grown corrupt and 

rotten 
By such excesses, we have sent to Rome, 
Beseeching that his Holiness would aid 
In curing the gross surfeit of the time, 
By seasonable stop put here in Spain 
To bull-fights and lewd dances on the stage. 
All this you know. 

Card. Know and approve. 

Arch. And further, 

That, by a mandate from his Holiness, 
The first have been suppressed. 

Card. I trust forever. 

It was a cruel sport. 

Arch. A barbarous pastime, 

Disgraceful to the land that calls itself 
Most Catholic and Christian. 

Card. Yet the people 

Murmur at this ; and, if the public dances 
Should be condemned upon too slight occa- 
sion, 
Worse ills might follow than the ills we cure. 
As Panem et Cir censes was the cry 
Among the Roman populace of old, 
So Pan y Toros is the cry in Spain. 
Hence I would act advisedly herein ; 
And therefore have induced your Grace to 

see 
These national dances, ere we interdict 
them. 



(Enter a Servant.) 
Serv. The dancing-girl, and with her the 
musicians 
Your Grace was pleased to order, wait 
without. 
Arch. Bid them come in. Now shall 
your eyes behold 
In what angelic, yet voluptuous shape 
The Devil came to tempt Saint Anthony. 

(Enter Preciosa, with a mantle thrown over her head. 
She advances slowly, in modest, half-timid attitude.) 

Card, (aside). Oh, what a fair and min- 
istering angel 
Was lost to heaven when this sweet woman 
fell ! 
Prec. (kneeling before the Archbishop). 
I have obeyed the order of your 
Grace. 
If I intrude upon your better hours, 
I proffer this excuse, and here beseech 
Your holy benediction. 

Arch. May God bless thee, 

And lead thee to a better life. Arise. 
Card, (aside). Her acts are modest, and 
her words discreet ! 
I did not look for this ! Come hither, 

child. 
Is thy name Preciosa ? 

Prec. Thus I am called. 

Card. That is a Gypsy name. Who is 

thy father ? 
Prec. Beltran Cruzado, Count of the 

Gale's. 
Arch. I have a dim remembrance of 
that man ; 
He was a bold and reckless character, 
A sun-burnt Ishmael ! 

Card. Dost thou remember 

Thy earlier days ? 

Prec. Yes ; by the Darro's side 

My childhood passed. I can remember 

still 
The river, and the mountains capped with 

snow ; 
The villages, where, yet a little child, 
I told the traveller's fortune in the street ; 
The smuggler's horse, the brigand and the 

shepherd ; 
The march across the moor ; the halt at 

noon ; 
The red fire of the evening camp, thai 

lighted 
The forest where we slept ; and, furthfl 
back, 



THE SPANISH STUDENT 



35 



As in a dream or in some former life, 
Gardens and palace walls. 

Arch. 'Tis the Alhambra, 

Under whose towers the Gypsy camp was 

pitched. 
But the time wears ; and we would see thee 
dance. 
Prec. Your Grace shall be obeyed. 

{She lays aside her mantilla. The music of the cachu- 
cha is played, and the dance begins. The Arch- 
bishop and the Cardinal look on with gravity and 
an occasional frown ; then make signs to each other ; 
and, as the dance continues, become more and more 
pleased and excited; and at length rise from their 
seats, throiv their caps in the air, and applaud vehe- 
mently as the scene closes.) 



Scene III. — The Prado. A long avenue of trees lead- 
ing to the gale of Atocha. On the right the dome and 
spires of a convent. A fountain. Eveniiig. Don 
Carlos and Hypolito meeting. 

Don C. Hola ! good evening, Don Hypo- 
lito. 
Hyp. And a good evening to my friend, 
Don Carlos. 
Some lucky star has led my steps this way. 
I was in search of you. 

Don C. Command me always. 

Hyp. Do you remember, in Quevedo's 
Dreams, 
The miser, who, upon the Day of Judg- 
ment, 
Asks if his money-bags would rise ? 

Don C. I do ; 

But what of that ? 

Hyp. I am that wretched man. 

Don C. You mean to tell me yours have 

risen empty ? 
Hyp. And amen ! said my Cid Campe- 

ador. 
Don C. Pray, how much need you ? 
Hyp. Some balf-dozen ounces, 

Which, with due interest — 

Don C. (giving his purse). What, am I 
a Jew 
To put my moneys out at usury ? 
Here is my purse. 

Hyp. Thank you. A pretty purse. 

Made by the hand of some fair Madrileiia ; 
Perhaps a keepsake. 

Don C. No, 't is at your service. 

Hyp. Thank you again. Lie there, good 
Chrysostom, 
And with thy golden mouth remind me 

often, 
I am the debtor of my friend. 



Don C. But tell me, 

Come you to-day from Alcald ? 

Hyp. This moment. 

Don C. And pray, how fares the brave 

Victorian ? 
Hyp. Indifferent well ; that is to say, not 
well. 
A damsel has ensnared him with the glances 
Of her dark, roving eyes, as herdsmen catch 
A steer of Andalusia with a lazo. 
He is in love. 

Don C. And is it faring ill 

To be in love ? 

Hyp. In his case very ill. 

Don a Why so ? 

Hyp. For many reasons. First and fore- 
most, 
Because he is in love with an ideal ; 
A creature of his own imagination ; 
A child of air ; an echo of his heart ; 
And, like a lily on a river floating, 
She floats upon the river of his thoughts ! 
Don C. A common thing with poets. But 
who is 
This floating lily ? For, in fine, some wo- 
man, 
Some living woman, — not a mere ideal, — 
Must wear the outward semblance of his 

thought. 
Who is it ? Tell me. 

Hyp. Well, it is a woman ! 

But, look you, from the coffer of his heart 
He brings forth precious jewels to adorn 

her, 
As pious priests adorn some favorite saint 
With gems and gold, until at length she 

gleams 
One blaze of glory. Without these, you 

know, 
And the priest's benediction, 't is a doll. 
Don C. Well, well ! who is this doll ? 
Hyp. Why, who do you think ? 

Don C. His cousin Violante. 
Hyp. Guess again. 

To ease his laboring heart, in the last storm 
He threw her overboard, with all her in- 
gots. 
Don C. I cannot guess ; so tell me who 

it is. 
Hyp. Not I. 
Don C. Why not ? 

Hyp. (mysteriously). Why ? Because 
Mari Franca 
Was married four leagues out of Sala* 
manca ! 



36 



THE SPANISH STUDENT 



Don C. Jesting aside ? who is it ? 
Hyp. Preciosa. 

Don C. Impossible ! The Count of Lara 
tells me 
She is not virtuous. 

Hyp. Did I say she was ? 

The Roman Emperor Claudius had a wife 
Whose name was Messalina, as 1 think ; 
Valeria Messalina was her name. 
But hist ! I see him yonder through the 

trees, 
Walking as in a dream. 
Don C. He comes this way. 

Hyp. It has been truly said by some wise 
man, 
That money, grief, and love cannot be hid- 
den. 

(Enter Victorian in front.) 
Vict. Where'er thy step has passed is 
holy ground ! 
These groves are sacred ! I behold thee 

walking 
Under these shadowy trees, where we have 

walked 
At evening, and I feel thy presence now ; 
Feel that the place has taken a charm from 

thee, 
And Is forever hallowed. 

Hyp. Mark him well ! 

See how he strides away with lordly air, 
Like that odd guest of stone, that grim 

Commander 
Who comes to sup with Juan in the play. 
Don C. What ho ! Victorian ! 
Hyp. Wilt thou sup with us ? 

Vict. Hola ! amigos ! Faith, I did not 
see you. 
How fares Don Carlos ? 

Don C. At your service ever. 

Vict. How is that young and green-eyed 
Gaditana 
That you both wot of ? 

Don C. Ay, soft, emerald eyes ! 

She has gone back to Cadiz. 

Hyp. Ay de ml ! 

Vict. You are much to blame for letting 
her go back. 
A pretty girl ; and in her tender eyes 
Just that soft shade of green we sometimes 

see 
In evening skies. 

Hyp. But, speaking of green eyes, 

&.re thine green ? 

Vict. Not a whit. Why so ? 

Hyp. I think 



The slightest shade of green would be be» 

coming, 
For thou art jealous. 

Vict. No, I am not jealous. 

Hyp. Thou shouldst be. 
Vict. Why ? 

Hyp. Because thou art in love. 

And they who are in love are always jealous. 
Therefore thou shouldst be. 

Vict. Marry, is that all ? 

Farewell ; I am in haste. Farewell, Don 

Carlos. 
Thou sayest I should be jealous ? 

Hyp. Ay, in truth 

I fear there is reason. Be upon thy guard. 
I hear it whispered that the Count of Lara 
Lays siege to the same citadel. 

Vict. Indeed ! 

Then he will have his labor for his pains. 
Hyp. He does not think so, and Don 
Carlos tells me 
He boasts of his success. 

Vict. How 's this, Don Carlos ? 

Don C. Some hints of it I heard from 
his own lips. 
He spoke but lightly of the lady's virtue, 
As a gay man might speak. 

Vict. Death and damnation 1 

I '11 cut his lying tongue out of his mouth, 
And throw it to my dog ! But, no, no, no J 
This cannot be. You jest, indeed you jest. 
Trifle with me no more. For otherwise 
We are no longer friends. And so, fare-* 
well ! P^«- 

Hyp. Now what a coil is here ! The 
Avenging Child 
Hunting the traitor Quadros to his death, 
And the great Moor Calaynos, when he 

rode 
To Paris for the ears of Oliver, 
Were nothing to him ! O hot - headed 

youth ! 
But come ; we will not follow. Let us joh) 
The crowd that pours into the Prado. There 
We shall find merrier company ; I see 
The Marialonzos and the Alma vivas, 
And fifty fans, that beckon me already. 

[Exeunt 

Scene IV. — Preciosa's chamber. She is sitting, with 
a book in her hand, near a table, on which are flow 
ers. A bird singing in its cage. The Count o* 
Lara enters behind unperceived. 

Prec. (reads'). 

All are sleeping, weary heart ! 
Thou, thou only sleepless art I 



THE SPANISH STUDENT 



Heigho I I wish Victorian were here. 
I know not what it is makes nie so restless! 
{The bird sings.) 

Thou little prisoner with thy motley coat, 
That from thy vaulted, wiry dungeon sing- 

est, 
Like thee I am a captive, and, like thee, 
I have a gentle jailer. Lack-a-day ! 

All are sleeping-, weary heart ! 
Thou, thou only sleeplass art ! 
•All this throbbing, all this aching, 
Evermore shall keep thee waking, 
For a heart in sorrow breaking 
ThLaketh ever of its smart ! 

Thou spoakest truly, poet ! and methinks 
More hearts are breaking in this world of 

ours 
Than one would say. In distant villages 
And solitudes remote, vhere winds have 

wafted 
The barbed seeds of love, or birds of pas- 



Scattered them in their flight, do they take 

root, 
A.nd grow in silence, and in silence perish. 
Who hears the falling of the forest leaf ? 
Or who takes note of every flower that 

dies? 
Heigho ! I wish Victorian would come. 
Dolores ! 

[Turns to lay down her book, and perceives the Count.) 

Ha! 
Lara. Seiiora, pardon me ! 

Prec. How 's this ? Dolores ! 
Lara. Pardon me — 

Prec. Dolores ! 

Lara. Be not alarmed ; I found no one 
in waiting. 
If I have been too bold — - 

Prec. (turning her back upon him). You 
are too bold ! 
Retire ! retire, and leave me ! 

Lara. My dear lady, 

First hear me ! I beseech you, let me 

speak ! 
*T is for your good I come. 

Prec. (turning toward him with indigna- 
tion). Begone ! begone ! 
You are the Count of Lara, but your deeds 
Would make the statues of your ancestors 
Blush on their tombs ! Is it Castilian 

honor, 
Is it Castilian pride- to steal in here 
Upon a friendless girl, to do her wrong ? 



Oh shame ! shame ! shame ! that you, a 

nobleman, 
Should be so little noble in your thoughts 
As to send jewels here to win my love, 
And think to buy my honor with your gold! 
I have no words to tell you how I scorn 

you! 
Begone ! The sight of you is hateful to me ! 
Begone, I say ! 

Lara. Be calm ; I will not harm you. 

Prec. Because you dare not. 

Lara. I dare anything 1 

Therefore beware ! You are deceived in 

me. 
In this false world, we do not always know 
Who are our friends and who our enemies. 
We all have enemies, and all need friends. 
Even you, fair Preciosa, here at court 
Have foes, who seek to wrong you. 

Prec. If to this 

I owe the honor of the present visit, 
You might have spared the coming. Hav- 
ing spoken, 
Once more I beg you, leave me to myself. 

Lara. I thought it but a friendly part to 
tell you 
What strange reports are current here in 

town. 
For my own self, I do not credit them ; 
But there are many who, not knowing you, 
Will lend a readier ear. 

Prec. There was no need 

That you should take upon yourself the 

duty 
Of telling me these tales. 

Lara. Malicious tongues 

Are ever busy with your name. 

Prec. Alas ! 

I 've no protectors. I am a poor girl, 
Exposed to insults and unfeeling jest. 
They wound me, yet I cannot shield my- 
self. 
I give no cause for these reports. I live 
Retired ; am visited by none. 

Lara. By none ? 

Oh, then, indeed, you are much wronged ! 

Prec. How mean you ? 

Lara. Nay, nay ; I will not wound youi 
gentle soul 
By the report of idle tales. 

Prec. Speak out ! 

What are these idle tales ? You need no* 
spare me. 

Lara. I will deal frankly with you. Par- 
don me : 



35 



THE SPANISH STUDENT 



This window, as I think, looks towards the 
street, 

And this into the Prado, does it not ? 

In yon high house, beyond the garden 
wall, — 

You see the roof there just above the 
trees, — 

There lives a friend, who told me yester- 
day, 

That on a certain night, — be not offended 

If I too plainly speak, — he saw a man 

Climb to your chamber window. You are 
silent ! 

I would not blame you, being young and 

fair — 

{He tries to embrace her. She starts back, and draws a 
dagger from her bosom.) 

Prec. Beware ! beware ! I am a Gypsy 
girl ! 
Lay not your hand upon me. One step 

nearer 
And I will strike ! 

Lara. Pray you, put up that dagger. 

Fear not. 

Prec. I do not fear. I have a heart 
In whose strength I can trust. 

Lara. Listen to me. 

I come here as your friend, — I am your 

friend, — 
And by a single word can put a stop 
To all those idle tales, and make your name 
Spotless as lilies are. Here on my knees, 
Fair Preciosa ! on my knees I swear, 
I love you even to madness, and that love 
Has driven me to break the rules of cus- 
tom, 
And force myself unasked into your pres- 
ence. 

(Victobian enters behind.) 
Prec. Rise, Count of Lara ! That is not 
the place 
For such as you are. It becomes you not 
To kneel before me. I am strangely moved 
To see one of your rank thus low and 

humbled ; 
For your sake I will put aside all anger, 
All unkind feeling, all dislike, and speak 
In gentleness, as most becomes a woman, 
And as my heart now prompts me. I no 

more 
Will hate you, for all hate is painful to me. 
But if, without offending modesty 
And that reserve which is a woman's glory, 
I may speak freely, I will teach my heart 
To love you. 



Lara. O sweet angel ! 

Prec. Ay, in truth, 

Far better than you love yourself or me. 
Lara. Give me some sign of this, — the 
slightest token. 
Let me but kiss your hand ! 

Prec. Nay, come no nearer. 

The words I utter are its sign and token. 
Misunderstand me not ! Be not deceived I 
The love wherewith I love you is not such 
As you would offer me. For you • come 

here 
To take from me the only thing I have, 
My honor. You are wealthy, you have 

friends 
And kindred, and a thousand pleasant hopes 
That fill your heart with happiness ; but I 
Am poor, and friendless, having but one 

treasure, 
And you would take that from me, and for 

what? 
To flatter your own vanity, and make me 
What you would most despise. Oh, sir, 

such love, 
That seeks to harm me, cannot be true 

love. 
Indeed it cannot. But my love for you 
Is of a different kind. It seeks your good. 
It is a holier feeling. It rebukes 
Your earthly passion, your unchaste desires, 
And bids you look into your heart, and see 
How you do wrong that better nature in 

you, 
And grieve your soul with sin. 

Lara. I swear to you, 

I would not harm you ; I would only love 

you. 
I would not take your honor, but restore 

it, 
And in return I ask but some slight mark 
Of your affection. If indeed you love me, 
As you confess you do, oh, let me thus 
With this embrace — 

Vict, (rushing forward). Hold ! hold ! 
This is too much. 
What means this outrage ? 

Lara. First, what right have you 

To question thus a nobleman of Spain ? 
Vict. I too am noble, and you are no 
more ! 
Out of my sight ! 

Lara. Are you the master here ? 

Vict. Ay, here and elsewhere, when the 
wrong of others 
Gives me the right ! 



THE SPANISH STUDENT 



39 



Prec. {to Lara). Go ! I beseech you, 

S° ! 
Vict. I shall have business with you, 

Count, anon ! 

Lara. You cannot come too soon ! [Exit. 

Prec. Victorian ! 

Oh, we have been betrayed ! 

Vict. Ha ! ha ! betrayed ! 

'T is I have been betrayed, not we ! — not 
we ! 

Prec. Dost thou imagine — 

Vict. I imagine nothing ; 

I see how 't is thou whilest the time away 
WhSn I am gone ! 

Prec. Oh, speak not in that tone ! 

It wounds me deeply. 

Vict. 'T was not meant to flatter. 

Prec. Too well thou knowest the pres- 
ence of that man 
Is hateful to me ! 

Vict. Yet I saw thee stand 

And listen to him, when he told his love. 

Prec. I did not heed his words. 

Vict. Indeed thou didst, 

And answeredst them with love. 

Prec. Hadst thou heard all — 

Vict. I heard enough. 

Prec. Be not so angry with me. 

Vict. I am not angry ; I am very calm. 

Prec. If thou wilt let me speak — 

Vict. Nay, say no more. 

I know too much already. Thou art false! 
I do not like these Gypsy marriages ! 
Where is the ring I gave thee ? 

Prec. In my casket. 

Vict. There let it rest ! I would not 
have thee wear it : 
I thought thee spotless, and thou art pol- 
luted ! 

Prec. I call the Heavens to witness — 

Vict. Nay, nay, nay ! 

Take not the name of Heaven upon thy 

lips ! 
They are forsworn ! 

Prec. Victorian ! dear Victorian ! 

Vict. I gave up all for thee ; myself, my 
fame, 
My hopes of fortune, ay, my very soul ! 
And thou hast been my ruin ! Now, go on! 
Laugh at my folly with thy paramour 
And, sitting on the Count of Lara's knee, 
Say what a poor, fond fool Victorian was ! 
(He casts her from him and rushes out.) 

Prec. And this from thee ! 
(Scene closes.) 



Scene V. — The Count of Larj 'a rooms. Enter the 
Oount. 

Lara. There 's nothing in this world sc 
sweet as love, 
And next to love the sweetest thing is hate I 
I 've learned to hate, and therefore am re- 
venged. 
A silly girl to play the prude with me ! 
The fire that I have kindled — 
(Enter Francisco.) 

Well, Francisco, 
What tidings from Don Juan ? 

Fran. Good, my lord ; 

He will be present. 

Lara. And the Duke of Lermos ! 

Fran. Was not at home. 

Lara. How with the rest ? 

Fran. 1 've found 

The men you wanted. They will all be there, 
And at the given signal raise a whirlwind 
Of such discordant noises, that the dance 
Must cease for lack of music. 

Lara. Bravely done. 

Ah ! little dost thou dream, sweet Preciosa, 
What lies in wait for thee. Sleep shall not 

close 
Thine eyes this night ! Give me my cloak 
and sword. [Exeunt. 

Scene VI. — A retired spot beyond the city gates. En- 
ter Victorian and Hypolito. 

Vict. Oh shame ! Oh shame ! Why do 

I walk abroad 
By daylight, when the very sunshine mocks 

me, 
And voices, and familiar sights and sounds 
Cry, " Hide thyself ! " Oh, what a thin 

partition 
Doth shut out from the curious world the 

knowledge 
Of evil deeds that have been done in dark- 
ness ! 
Disgrace has many tongues. My fears are 

windows, 
Through which all eyes seem gazing 

Every face 
Expresses some suspicion of my shame. 
And in derision seems to smile at me ! 
Hyp. Did I not caution thee? Did I 

not tell thee 
I was but half persuaded of her virtue ? 
Vict. And yet, Hypolito, we may be 

wrong, 
We may be over-hasty in condemning ! 
The Count of Lara is a cursed villain. 



40 



THE SPANISH STUDENT 



Hyp. And therefore is she cursed, loving 

him. 
Vict. She does not love him ! 'T is for 

gold ! for gold ! 
Hyp. Ay, but remember, in the public 
streets 
He shows a golden ring the Gypsy gave 

him, 
A. serpent with a ruby in its mouth. 

Vict. She had that ring from me ! God ! 
she is false ; 
But I will be revenged ! The hour is 

passed. 
Where stays the coward ? 

Hyp. Nay, he is no coward ; 

A villain, if thou wilt, but not a coward. 
I 've seen him play with swords ; it is his 

pastime. 
And therefore be not over-confident, 
He '11 task thy skill anon. Look, here he 
comes. 

{Enter "Lark followed by Francisco.) 
Lara. Good evening, gentlemen. 
Hyp. Good evening, Count. 

Lara. I trust I have not kept you long- 
in waiting. 
Vict. Not long, and yet too long. Are 

you prepared ? 
Lara. I am. 

Hyp. It grieves me much to see this 
quarrel 
Between you, gentlemen. Is there no way 
Left open to accord this difference, 
But you must make one with your swords ? 
Vict. No ! none ! 

I do entreat thee, dear Hypolito, 
Stand not between me and my foe. Too 

long 
Our tongues have spoken. Let these 

tongues of steel 
End our debate. Upon your guard, Sir 
Count. 

(They fight. Victorian disarms the Count.) 

Your life is mine ; and what shall now 

withhold me 
From sending your vile soul to its ac- 
count ? 
Lara. Strike ! strike ! 
Vict. You are disarmed. I will not 
kill you. 
I will not murder you. Take up your 
sword. 

(.Francisco hands Ihe Count his sword, and Hypolito 
interposes.} 



Hyp. Enough ! Let it end here ! The 
Count of Lara 
Has shown himself a brave man, and Vic- 
torian 
A generous one, as ever. Now be friends. 
Put up your swords ; for, to speak frankly 

to you, 
Your cause of quarrel is too slight a thing 
To move you to extremes. 

Lara. I am content. 

I sought no quarrel. A few hasty words, 
Spoken in the heat of blood, have led to 
this. 
Vict. Nay, something more than that. 
Lara. I understand you. 

Therein I did not mean to cross your path. 
To me the door stood open, as to others. 
But, had I known the girl belonged to 

you, 
Never would I have sought to win her from 

you. 
The truth stands now revealed ; she has 

been false 
To both of us. 

Vict. Ay, false as hell itself ! 

Lara. In truth, I did not seek her ; she 
sought me ; 
And told me how to win her, telling me 
The hours when she was oftenest left 
alone. 
Vict. Say, can you prove this to me ? 
Oh, pluck out 
These awful doubts, that goad me into 

madness ! 
Let me know all ! all ! all ! 

Lara. You shall know all. 

Here is my page, who was the messenger 
Between us. Question him. Was it not sCfc 
Francisco ? 
Fran. Ay, my lord. 

Lara. If further proof 

Is needful, I have here a ring she gave me. 
Vict. Pray let me see that ring ! It is 
the same ! 
(Throws it upon the ground, and tramples upon it.) 
Thus may she perish who once wore that 

ring ! 
Thus do I spurn her from me ; do thus 

trample 
Her memory in the dust ! O Count of 

Lara, 
We both have been abused, been much 

abused ! 
I thank you for your courtesy and frank* 



THE SPANISH STUDENT 



4i 



Though, like the surgeon's hand, yours 

gave me pain, 
Yet it has cured my blindness, and I thank 

you. 
I now can see the folly I have done, 
Though 't is, alas ! too late. So fare vou 

To-night I leave this hateful town forever. 
Regard me as your friend. Once more 
farewell ! 
Hyp. Farewell, Sir Count. 

[Exeunt Victorian and Hypolito. 
Lara. Farewell ! farewell ! farewell ! 
Thus have I cleared the field of my worst 

foe! 
I have none else to fear ; the fight is done, 
The citadel is stormed, the victory won ! 

[Exit with Francisco. 

Scene VII. — A lane in the suburbs. Night. Enter 
Cruzado and Bartolome. 

Cruz. And so, Bartolome*, the expedition 
failed. But where wast thou for the most 
part? 

Bart. In the Guadarrama mountains, 
near San Ildefonso. 

Cruz. And thou bringest nothing back 
with thee ? Didst thou rob no one ? 

Bart. There was no one to rob, save a 
party of students from Segovia, who looked 
as if they would rob us ; and a jolly little 
friar, who had nothing in his pockets but 
a missal and a loaf of bread. 

Cruz. Pray, then, what brings thee back 
to Madrid ? 

Bart. First tell me what keeps thee here ? 

Cruz. Preciosa. 

Bart. And she brings me back. Hast 
thou forgotten thy promise ? 

Cruz. The two years are not passed yet. 
Wait patiently. The girl shall be thine. 

Bart. I hear she has a Busne* lover. 

Cruz. That is nothing. 

Bart. I do not like it. I hate him, — 
the son of a Busne* harlot. He goes in 
and out, and speaks with her alone, and I 
must stand aside, and wait his pleasure. 

Cruz. Be patient, I say. Thou shalt have 
thy revenge. When the time comes, thou 
shalt waylay him. 

Bart. Meanwhile, show me her house. 

Cruz. Come this way. But thou wilt not 
find her. She dances at the play to-night. 

Bart. No matter. Show me the house. 

[Exeunt. 



Scene VIII. — The Theatre. The orchestra plays the 
cachucha. Sound of castanets behind the scenes. 
The curtain rises, and discovers Preciosa in the 
attitude of commencing the dance. The cachucha. 
Tumult ; hisses ; cries of " Brava ! " and " Afuera I " 
She falters and pauses. The music stops. Genera? 
confusion. Preciosa faints. 



Scene IX. — The Count op Lara's chambers. Las 
and his friends at supper. 

Lara. So, Caballeros, once more many 
thanks ! 
You have stood by me bravely in this mat- 
ter. 
Pray fill your glasses. 

Don J. Did you mark, Don Luis, 

How pale she looked, when first the noise 

began, 
And then stood still, with her large eyes 

dilated ! 
Her nostrils spread ! her lips apart ! her 

bosom 
Tumultuous as the sea ! 

Don L. I pitied her. 

Lara. Her pride is humbled ; and thia 
very night 
I mean to visit her. 

Don J. Will you serenade her ? 

Lara. No music ! no more music ! 
Don L. Why not music ? 

It softens many hearts. 

Lara. Not in the humor 

She now is in. Music would madden 
her. 
Don J. Try golden cymbals. 
Don L. Yes, try Don Dinero ; 

A mighty wooer is your Don Dinero. 

Lara. To tell the truth, then, I have 
bribed her maid. 
But, Caballeros, you dislike this wine. 
A bumper and away ; for the night we^*». 
A health to Preciosa. 

(They rise and drink.) 

A 11. Preciosa. 

Lara {holding up his glass). Thou bright 
and flaming minister of Love ! 

Thou wonderful magician ! who hast stolen 

My secret from me, and 'mid sighs of pas- 
sion 

Caught from my lips, with red and fiery 
tongue, 

Her precious name ! Oh nevermore hence- 
forth 

Shall mortal lips press thine ; and never- 
more 



42 



THE SPANISH STUDENT 



A mortal name be whispered in thine ear. 
Go ! keep my secret ! 

(Drinks and dashes the goblet down.) 

Don J. Ite ! missa est ! 

(Scene closes.) 

Scene X. — Street and garden wall. Night. Enter 
Cruzado and Bartolomb. 

Cruz. This is the garden wall, and above 
it, yonder, is her house. The window in 
which thou seest the light is her window. 
But we will not go in now. 

Bart. Why not ? 

Cruz. Because she is not at home. 

Bart. No matter ; we can wait. But 
how is this ? The gate is bolted. {Sound 
oj guitars and voices in a neighboring street.) 
Hark ! There comes her lover with his 
infernal serenade ! Hark ! 



Good night ! Good night, beloved ! 

I come to watch o'er thee ! 
To be near thee, — to be near thee, 

Alone is peace for me. 

Thine eyes are stars of morning-, 
Thy lips are crimson flowers ! 

Good night ! Good night, beloved, 
While I count the weary hours. 

Cruz. They are not coming this way. 
Bart. Wait, they begin again. 

song (coming nearer) 

Ah ! thou moon that sbinest 

Argent-elear above ! 
All night long enlighten 

My sweet lady-love ; 

Moon that shinest, 
All night long enlighten ! 

Bart. Woe be to him, if he comes this 
way ! 

Cruz. Be quiet, they are passing down 
the street. 

song (dying away) 

The nuns in the cloister 

Sang to each other ; 
For so many sisters 

Is there not one brother ! 
Ay, for the partridge, mother ! 

The cat has run away with the partridge ! 
Puss ! puss ! puss ! 

Bart. Follow that ! follow that ! Come 
with me. Puss ! puss ! 

{Exeunt. On the opposite side enter the Count of 
and gentlemen with Francisco.) 



Lara. The gate is fast. Over the wall, 
Francisco, 
And draw the bolt. There, so, and so, and 

over. 
Now, gentlemen, come in, and help me 

scale 
Yon balcony. How now ? Her light still 

burns. 
Move warily. Make fast the gate, Fran- 
cisco. 
(Exeunt. Reenter Cruzado and Bartolomb.) 
Bart. They went in at the gate. Hark ! 
I hear them in the garden. {Tries the 
gate.) Bolted again ! Vive Cristo ! Follow 
me over the wall. 

(They climb the wall.) 

Scene XI. — Freciosa's bedchamber. Midnight. She 
is sleeping in an arm-chair, in an undress. Dolores 
watching her. 

Dol. She sleeps at last ! 

(Opens the window, and listens.) 

All silent in the street, 
And in the garden. Hark ! 

Prec. (in her sleep). I must go hence \ 
Give me my cloak ! 

Dol. He comes ! I hear his footsteps. 
Prec. Go tell them that I cannot dance 
to-night ; 
I am too ill ! Look at me ! See the 

fever 
That burns upon my cheek ! I must go 

hence. 
I am too weak to dance. 

(Signal from the garden.) 
Dol. (from the window). Who 's there ? 
Voice (from below). A friend. 

Dol. I will undo the door. W r ait till I 

come. 
Prec. I must go hence. I pray you do 
not harm me ! 
Shame ! shame ! to treat a feeble woman 

thus! 
Be you but kind, I will do all things foi 

you. 
I 'm ready now, — give me my castanets. 
Where is Victorian ? Oh, those hateful 

lamps ! 
They glare upon me like an evil eye. 
I cannot stay. Hark ! how they mock ai 

me ! 
They hiss at me like serpents ! Save me' 
save me ! 

(She wakes.) 
How late is it, Dolores ? 



THE SPANISH STUDENT 



43 



T)ol. It is midnight. 

Prec. We must be patient. Smooth this 
pillow for me. 
[She sleeps again. Noise Jrom the garden, and voices.) 
Voice. Muera ! 

Another voice. O villains ! villains ! 
Lara. So ! have at you ! 

Voice. Take that ! 

Lara. Oh, I am wounded ! 

Dol. (shutting the window). Jesu Maria ! 



ACT III 

Scene I. — A cross-road through a wojd. In the back- 
ground a distant village spire. Victoria-i and Hy- 
polito, as travelling students, with guitars, silling 
under the trees. Hypolito plays and sings. 



SONG 

Ah, Love ! 
Perjured, false, treacherous Love ! 

Enemy 
Of all that mankind may not rue ! 

Most untrue 
To him who keeps most faith with thee. 

Woe is me ! 
The falcon has the eyes of the dove. 

Ah, Love ! 
Perjured, false, treacherous Love ! 

Vict. Yes, Love is ever busy with hi3 
shuttle, 
Is ever weaving into life's dull warp 
Bright, gorgeous flowers and scenes Arca- 
dian ; 
Hanging our gloomy prison-house about 
With tapestries, that make its walls dilate 
In never-ending vistas of delight. 

Hyp. Thinking to walk in those Arcadian 
pastures, 
Thou hast run thy noble head against the 
wall. 

SONG {continued) 

Thy deceits 
Give us clearly to comprehend, 

Whither tend 
All thy pleasures, all thy sweets I 

They are cheats. 
Thorns below and flowers above. 

Ah, Love ! 
Perjured, false, treacherous Love ! 

Vict. A very pretty song. I thank thee 

for it. 
Hyp. It suits thy case. 
Vict. Indeed, I think it does. 

"*That wise man wrote it ? 

Wyp. Lopez Maldonado. 



Vict. In truth, a pretty song. 
Hyp. With much truth in it. 

I hope thou wilt profit by it ; and in earnest 
Try to forget this lady of thy love. 

Vict. I will forget her ! All dear recol- 
lections 
Pressed in my heart, like flowers within a 

book, 
Shall be torn out, and scattered to the 

winds ! 
I will forget her ! But perhaps hereafter, 
When she shall learn how heartless is the 

world, 
A voice within her will repeat my name, 
And she will say, " He was indeed my 

friend ! " 
Oh, would I were a soldier, not a scholar, 
That the loud march, the deafening beat ol 

drums, 
The shattering blast of the brass-throated 

trumpet, 
The din of arms, the onslaught and the 

storm, 
And a swift death, might make me deaf 

forever 
To the upbraidings of this foolish heart ! 
Hyp. Then let that foolish heart upbraid 

no more ! 
To conquer love, one need but will to con- 
quer. 
Vict. Yet, good Hypolito, it is in vain 
I throw into Oblivion's sea the sword 
That pierces me ; for, like Excalibar, 
With gemmed and flashing hilt, it will not 

sink. 
There rises from below a hand that grasps 

it, 
And waves it in the air ; and wailing voices 
Are heard along the shore. 

Hyp. And yet at last 

Down sank Excalibar to rise no more. 
This is not well. In truth, it vexes me. 
Instead of whistling to the steeds of Time, 
To make them jog on merrily with life's 

burden, 
Like a dead weight thou hangest on the 

wheels. 
Thou art too young, too full of lusty health 
To talk of dying. 

Vict. Yet I fain would die ! 

To go through life, unloving and unloved ; 
To feel that thirst and hunger of the soul 
We cannot still ; that longing, that wild 

impulse, 
And struggle after something we have not 



44 



THE SPANISH STUDENT 



And cannot have ; the effort to be strong ; 

And, J ike the (Spartan boy, to smile, and 
smile, 

While secret wounds do bleed beneath our 
cloaks ; 

All this the dead feel not, — the dead 
alone ! 

Would I were with them ! 

Hyp. We shall all be soon. 

Vict. It cannot be too soon ; for I am 
weary 

Of the bewildering masquerade of Life, 

Where strangers walk as friends, and 
friends as strangers ; 

Where whispers overheard betray false 

hearts ; 
ind through the mazes of the crowd we 
chase 

Some form of loveliness, that smiles, and 
beckons, 

And cheats us with fair words, only to leave 
us 

A mockery and a jest ; maddened, — con- 
fused, — 

Not knowing friend from foe. 

Hyp. Why seek to know ? 

Enjoy the merry shrove-tide of thy youth ! 

Take each fair mask for what it gives it- 
self, 

Nor strive to look beneath it. 

Vict. I confess, 

That were the wiser part. But Hope no 
longer 

Comforts my soul. I am a wretched man, 

Much like a poor and shipwrecked mariner, 

Who, struggling to climb up into the boat, 

Has both his bruised and bleeding hands 
cut off, 

And sinks again into the weltering sea, 

Helpless and hopeless ! 

Hyp. Yet thou shalt not perish. 

The strength of thine own arm is thy salva- 
tion. 

Above thy head, through rifted clouds, 
there shines 

A glorious star. Be patient. Trust thy 
star ! 
(Sound of a village bell in the distance.) 
Vict. Ave Maria ! I hear the sacristan 

Ringing the chimes from yonder village 
belfry ! 

A solemn sound, that echoes far and wide 

Over the red roofs of the cottages, 

And bids the laboring hind afield, the shep- 
herd- 



Guarding his flock, the lonely muleteer, 

And all the crowd in village streets, stand 
still, 

And breathe a prayer unto the blessed Vir- 
gin ! 
Hyp. Amen ! amen ! Not half a league 
from hence 

The village lies. 

Vict. This path will lead us to it. 

Over the wheat-fields, where the shadows 
sail 

Across the running sea, now green, now 
blue, 

And, like an idle mariner on the main, 

Whistles the quail. Come, let us hasten 
on. [Exeunt. 

Scene II. — Public square in the village of Guadar~ 
rama. The Ave Maria still tolling. A crowd of vil- 
lagers, with their hats in their hands, as if in prayer. 
In front, a group of Gypsies. The bell rings a mer- 
rier peal. A Gypsy dance. Enter Pancho, followed 
by Pedro Cbespo. 

Pancho. Make room, ye vagabonds and 
Gypsy thieves ! 
Make room for the Alcalde and for me ! 
Pedro C. Keep silence all ! I have an 
edict here 
From our most gracious lord, the King of 

Spain, 
Jerusalem, and the Canary Islands, 
Which I shall publish in the market-place. 
Open your ears and listen ! 

(Enter the Padre Cura at the door of his cottage.) 
Padre Cura, 
Good day ! and, pray you, hear this edict 
read. 
Padre C. Good day, and God be witb 
you! 
Pray, what is it ? 

Pedro C. An act of banishment against 
the Gypsies ! 

(Agitation and murmurs in the crowd.) 
Pancho. Silence ! 

Pedro C. {reads). " I hereby order and 
command, 
That the Egyptian and Chaldean stran- 

gers, 
Known by the name of Gypsies, shall 

henceforth 
Be banished from the realm, as vagabonds 
And beggars ; and if, after seventy days, 
Any be found within our kingdom's bounds.. 
They shall receive a hundred lashes each ; 
The second time, shall have their ears cut 
off; 



THE SPANISH STUDENT 



45 



The third, be slaves for life to him who 

takes them, 
Or burnt as heretics. Signed, I, the King." 
Vile miscreauts and creatures unbaptized ! 
You hear the law ! Obey and disappear ! 
Pancho. And if in seventy days you are 
not gone, 
Dead or alive I make you all my slaves. 
{The Gypsies go out in confusion, showing signs of fear 
and discontent. Pancho follows.) 
Padre C. A righteous law ! A very 
righteous law ! 
Pray you, sit down. 

Pedro C. I thank you heartily. 

{They seat themselves on a bench at the Padre Cuba's 
door. Sou7id of guitars heard at a distance, ap- 
proaching during the dialogue which follows.) 

X very righteous judgment, as you say. 
/fow tell me, Padre Cura, — you know all 

things, — 
How came these Gypsies into Spain ? 

Padre C. Why, look you ; 

They came with Hercules from Palestine, 
A.nd hence are thieves and vagrants, Sir 

Alcalde, 
As the Simoniacs from Simon Magus. 
And, look you, as # Fray Jayme Bleda says, 
There are a hundred marks to prove a 

Moor 
Is not a Christian, so *t is with the Gypsies. 
They never marry, never go to mass, 
Never baptize their children, nor keep 

Lent, 
Nor see the inside of a church, — nor — 
nor — 
Pedro C. Good reasons, good, substan- 
tial reasons all ! 
No matter for the other ninety-five. 
They should be burnt, I see it plain enough, 
They should be burnt. 

{Enter Victorian and Hypolito playing.) 
Padre C. And pray, whom have we here ? 
Pedro C. More vagrants ! By Saint 

Lazarus, more vagrants ! 
Hyp. Good evening, gentlemen ! Is this 

Guadarrama ? 
Padre C. Yes, Guadarrama, and good 

evening to you. 
Hyp. We seek the Padre Cura of the 
village ; 
And, judging from your dress and rev- 
erend mien, 
Sou must be he. 
Padre C. I am. Pray, what 's your 
pleasure ? 



Hyp. We are poor students travelling in 
vacation. 
You know this mark ? 

(Touching the wooden spoon in his hat-band.) 
Padre C. (joyfully). Ay, know it, and 

have worn it. 
Pedro C. (aside). Soup-eaters ! by the 
mass ! The worst of vagrants ! 
And there 's no law against them. Sir, 
your servant. [EziL 

Padre C. Your servant, Pedro Crespo. 
Hyp. Padre Cura P 

From the first moment I beheld your face, 
I said within myself, " This is the man ! " 
There is a certain something in } r our looks, 
A certain scholar-like and studious some- 
thing,— 
You understand, — which cannot be mis- 
taken ; 
Which marks you as a very learned man, 
In fine, as one of us. 

Vict, (aside). What impudence ! 

Hyp. As we approached, I said to my 
companion, 
" That is the Padre Cura ; mark my 

words ! " 
Meaning your Grace. " The other man," 

said I, 
" Who sits so awkwardly upon the bench, 
Must be the sacristan." 

Padre C. Ah ! said you so ? 

Why, that was Pedro Crespo, the alcalde ! 
Hyp. Indeed ! you much astonish me ! 
His air 
Was not so full of dignity and grace 
As an alcalde's should be. 

Padre C. That is true, 

He 's out of humor with some vagrant 

Gypsies, 
Who have their camp here in the neighbor- 
hood. 
There 's nothing so undignified as anger. 
Hyp. The Padre Cura will excuse our 
boldness, 
If, from his well-known hospitality, 
We crave a lodging for the night. 

Padre C. I pray you \ 

You do me honor ! I am but too happy 
To have such guests beneath my humbk 

roof. 
It is not often that I have occasion 
To speak with scholars ; and Emollit mores. 
Nee sinit esse feros, Cicero says. 
Hyp. 'T is Ovid, is it not ? 
I Padre C. No, Cicero. 



THE SPANISH STUDENT 



Hyp. Your Grace is right. You are the 
better scholar. 
Now what a dunce was I to think it Ovid ! 
But hang me if it is not ! (Aside.) 

Padre C. Pass this way. 

He was a very great man, was Cicero ! 
Pray you, go in, go in ! no ceremony. 

[Exeunt. 

Scene III. — A room in the Padrr Cuba's house. 
Enter the Padre and Hypolito. 

Padre C. So then, Senor, you come from 
Alcala. 
I am glad to hear it. It was there I studied. 
Hyp. And left behind an honored name, 
no doubt. 
3ow may I call your Grace ? 

Padre C. Gerdnimo 

De Santillana, at your Honor's service. 
Hyp. Descended from the Marquis San- 
tillana ? 
From the distinguished poet ? 

Padre C. From the Marquis, 

Not from the poet. 

Hyp. Why, they were the same. 

Let me embrace you ! Oh, some lucky star 
Has brought me hither ! Yet once more ! 

— once more ! 
Your name is ever green in Alcala, 
And our professor, when we are unruly, 
Will shake his hoary head, and say, " Alas ! 
It was not so in Santillana' s time ! " 

Padre C. I did not think my name re- 
membered there. 
Hyp. More than remembered ; it is idol- 
ized. 
Padre C. Of what prof essor speak you ? 
Hyp. Timoneda. 

Padre C. I don't remember any Timo- 
neda. 
Hyp. A grave and sombre man, whose 
beetling brow 
O'erhangs the rushing current of his speech 
As rocks o'er rivers hang. Have you for- 
gotten ? 
Padre C. Indeed, I have. Oh, those 
were pleasant days, 
Those college days ! I ne'er shall see the 

like ! 
I had not buried then so many hopes ! 
I had not buried then so many friends ! 
I *ve turned my back on what was then 

before me ; 
And the bright faces of my young com- 
panions 



Are wrinkled like my own, or are no more, 
Do you remember Cueva ? 

Hyp. Cueva? Cueva 1 

Padre C. Fool that I am ! He was be- 
fore your time. 
You 're a mere boy, and I am an old man. 
Hyp. I should not like to try my strength 

with you. 
Padre C. Well, well. But I forget; yon 
must be hungry. 
Martina ! ho ! Martina ! 'T is my niece. 

{Enter Maetina.) 

Hyp. You may be proud of such a niece 
as that. ' 
I wish I had a niece. Emolht mores. 

(Aside.) 
He was a very great man, was Cicero ! 
Your servant, fair Martina. 

Mart. Servant, sir. 

Padre C. This gentleman is hungry. See 
thou to it. 
Let us have supper. 

Mart. 'T will be ready soon. 

Padre C. And bring a bottle of my Val- 

de-Penas 

Out of the cellar. Stay ; I '11 go myself. 

Pray you, Senor, excuse me. [Exit. 

Hyp. Hist ! Martina ! 

One word with you. Bless me ! what hand- 



some eyes 



To-day there have been Gypsies in the vil- 
lage. 
Is it not so ? 

Mart. There have been Gypsies here. 
Hyp. Yes, and have told your fortune. 
Mart, (embarrassed). Told my fortune ? 
Hyp. Yes, yes ; I know they did. Give 
me your hand. 
I '11 tell you what they said. They said, — 

they said, 
The shepherd boy that loved you was a 

clown, 
And him you should not marry. Was it 
not? 
Mart, (surprised). How know you that ? 
Hyp. Oh, I know more than that. 
What a soft, little hand ! And then they 

said, 
A cavalier from court, handsome, and tall 
And rich, should come one day to marry 

you, 
And you should be a lady. Was it not ? 
He has arrived, the handsome cavalier. 

(Tries to kiss her. She runs off. Enter Victoria^ 
with a letter.} 



THE SPANISH STUDENT 



47 



Vict. The muleteer has come. 
Hyp. So soon ? 

Vict. I found him 

Sitting at supper by the tavern door, 
And, from a pitcher that he held aloft 
His whole arm's length, drinking the blood- 
red wine. 
Hyp. What news from Court ? 
Vict. He brought this letter only. 
(Reads.) 
Oh, cursed perfidy ! Why did I let 
That lying tongue deceive me ! Preciosa, 
Sweet Preciosa ! how art thou avenged ! 
Hyp. What news is this, that makes thy 
cheek turn pale, 
And thy hand tremble ? 

Vict. Oh, most infamous ! 

The Count of Lara is a worthless villain ! 
Hyp. That is no news, forsooth. 
Vict. He strove in vain 

To steal from me the jewel of my soul, 
The love of Preciosa. Not succeeding, 
He swore to be revenged ; and set on foot 
A plot to ruin her, which has succeeded. 
She has been hissed and hooted from the 

stage, 
Her reputation stained by slanderous lies 
Too foul to speak of ; and, once more a 

beggar, 
She roams a wanderer over God's green 

earth, 
Housing with Gypsies ! 

Hyp. To renew again 

The Age of Gold, and make the shepherd 

swains 
Desperate with love, like Gasper Gil's 

Diana. 
Jiedit et Virgo! 

Vict. Dear Hypolito, 

How have I wronged that meek, confiding 

heart ! 
I will go seek for her ; and with my tears 
Wash out the wrong I 've done her ! 

Hyp. Oh, beware ! 

Act not that folly o'er again. 

Vict. Ay, folly, 

Delusion, madness, call it what thou wilt, 
I will confess my weakness, — I still love 

her ! 
Still fondly love her ! 

{Enter the Padre Cm.'.,) 
Hyp. Tell us, Padre Cura, 

Who are these Gypsies in the neighbor- 
hood? 
Padre C. Beltran Cruzado and his crew. 



Vict. Kind Heaven, 

I thank thee ! She is found ! is found 
again ! 
Hyp. And have they with them a pale, 
beautiful girl, 
Called Preciosa ? 

Padre C. Ay, a pretty girl. 

The gentleman seems moved. 

Hyp. Yes, moved with hunger, 

He is half famished with this long day's 

journey. 

Padre C. Then, pray you, come this way. 

The supper waits. {Exeunt. 

Scene IV. — A post-hovse on the road to Segovia, not 
far from the village of Guadarrama. Enter Chispa, 
cracking a whip, and singing the cachucha. 

Chispa. Halloo ! Don Fulano ! Let us 
have horses, and quickly. Alas, poor Chi- 
spa ! what a dog's life dost thou lead ! I 
thought, when I left my old master Victo- 
rian, the student, to serve my new master 
Don Carlos, the gentleman, that I, too, 
should lead the life of a gentleman ; should 
go to bed early, and get up late. For when 
the abbot plays cards, what can you expect 
of the friars ? But, in running away from 
the thunder, I have run into the lightning. 
Here I am in hot chase after my maste] 
and his Gypsy girl. And a good beginning 
of the week it is, as he said who was hanged 
on Monday morning. 

(Enter Don Carlos.) 

Don C. Are not the horses ready yet ? 

Chispa. I should think not, for the host- 
ler seems to be asleep. Ho ! within there ! 
Horses ! horses ! horses ! (He knocks at 
the gate with his whip, and enter Mosquito, 
putting on his jacket.) 

Mosq. Pray, have a little patience. I 'm 
not a musket. 

Chispa. Health and pistareens ! I 'm 
glad to see you come on dancing, padre I 
Pray, what 's the news ? 

Mosq. You cannot have fresh horses ; 
because there are none. 

Chispa. Cachiporra ! Throw that bone 
to another dog. Do I look like your aunt ? 

Mosq. No ; she has a beard. 

Chispa. Go to ! go to ! 

Mosq. Are you from Madrid ? 

Chispa. Yes ; and going to Estramadura. 
Get us horses. 

Mosq. What 's the news at Court ? 

Chispa. Why, the latest news is, that J 



48 



THE SPANISH STUDENT 



am going to set up a coach, and I have 
already bought the whip. 

(Strikes him round the legs.) 

Mosq. Oh ! oh ! you hurt me ! 

Don C. Enough of this folly. Let us 
have horses. (Gives money to Mosquito.) 
It is almost dark ; and we are in haste. 
But tell me, has a band of Gypsies passed 
this way of late ? 

Mosq. Yes ; and they are still in the 
neighborhood. 

Don C. And where ? 

Mosq. Across the fields yonder, in the 
woods near Guadarrama. {Exit. 

Don C. Now this is lucky. We will 
visit the Gypsy camp. 

Chispa. Are you not afraid of the evil 
eye ? Have you a stag's horn with you ? 

Don C. Fear not. We will pass the 
night at the village. 

Chispa. And sleep like the Squires of 
Hernan Daza, nine under one blanket. 

Don C. I hope we may find the Preciosa 
among them. 

Chispa. Among the Squires ? 

Don C. No ; among the Gypsies, block- 
head ! 

Chispa. I hope we may ; for we are giv- 
ing ourselves trouble enough on her ac- 
count. Don't you think so ? However, 
there is no catching trout without wetting 
one's trousers. Yonder come the horses. 

[Exeunt. 

Scene V. — The Gypsy camp in the forest. Night. 
Gypsies loorking at d forge. Others playing cards 
by the firelight. 

Gypsies (at the forge sing). 

On the top of a mountain I stand, 
With a crown of red gold in my hand, 
Wild Moors come trooping over the lea, 
Oh how from their fury shall I flee, flee, flee ? 
Oh how from their fury shall I flee ? 

First Gypsy (playing). Down with your 
John - Dorados, my pigeon. Down with 
your John-Dorados, and let us make an 
end. 

Gypsies (at the forge sing) . 

Loud sang the Spanish cavalier, 

And thus his ditty ran ; 
God send the Gypsy lassie here, 

And not the Gypsy man. 

First Gypsy (playing). There you are in 
^our morocco ! 

Second Gypsy. One more game. The 



Alcalde's doves against the Padre Cura'a 
new moon. 

First Gypsy. Have at you, Chirelin. 

Gypsies (at the forge sing). 

At midnight, when the moon began 

To show her silver flame, 
There came to him no Gypsy man, 

The Gypsy lassie came. 

(Enter Beltran Cruzado.) 

Cruz. Come hither, Murcigalleros and 
Rastilleros ; leave work, leave play ; listen 
to your orders for the night. (Speaking to 
the right.) You will get you to the village, 
mark you, by the stone cross. 

Gypsies. Ay ! 

Cruz, (to the left). And you, by the pole 
with the hermit's head upon it. 

Gypsies. Ay ! 

Cruz. As soon as you see the planets are 
out, in with you, and be busy with the ten 
commandments, under the sly, and Saint 
Martin asleep. D' ye hear ? 

Gypsies. Ay ! 

Cruz. Keep your lanterns open, and, if 
you see a goblin or a papagayo, take to 
your trampers. Vineyards and Dancing 
John is the word. Am I comprehended ? 

Gypsies. Ay ! ay ! 

Cruz. Away, then ! 

(Exeunt severally. Cruzado walks up the stage, affij 
disappears among the trees. Enter Preciosa.) 

Prec. How strangely gleams through the 
gigantic trees, 
The red light of the forge ! Wild, beckon- 
ing shadows 
Stalk through the forest, ever and anon 
Rising and bending with the flickering 

flame, 
Then flitting into darkness ! So within ma 
Strange hopes and fears do beckon to eac? 

other, 
My brightest hopes giving dark fears w 

being 
As the light does the shadow. Woe is me I 
How still it is about me, and how lonely ! 
(Bartolome rushes in.) 
Bart. Ho ! Preciosa ! 
Prec. O Bartolome* ! 

Thou here ? 

Bart. Lo ! I am here. 

Prec. Whence comest thou ? 

Bart. From the rough ridges of the wild 
Sierra, 
From caverns in the rocks, from hunger, 
thirst, 



THE SPANISH STUDENT 



49 



And fever ! Like a wild wolf to the sheep- 
fold 

Come I for thee, my lamb. 

Prec. Oh, touch me not ! 

The Count of Lara's blood is on thy hands ! 

The Count of Lara's curse is on thy soul ! 

Do not come near me ! Pray, begone from 
here ! 

Thou art in danger ! They have set a price 

Upon thy head ! 

Bart. Ay, and I 've wandered long 

Among the mountains ; and for many days 

Have seen no human face, save the rough 
swineherd's. 

The wind and rain have been my sole com- 
panions. 

I shouted to them from the rocks thy 
name, 

And the loud echo sent it back to me, 

Till I grew mad. I could not stay from 
thee, 

And I am here ! Betray me, if thou wilt. 
Prec. Betray thee ? I betray thee ? 
Bart. . Preciosa ! 

I come for thee ! for thee I thus brave 
death ! 

Fly with me o'er the borders of this realm ! 

Fly with me ! 

Prec. Speak of that no more. I cannot. 

I 'm thine no longer. 

Bart. Oh, recall the time 

When we were children ! how we played 
together, 

How we grew up together ; how we plighted 

Our hearts unto each other, even in child- 
hood ! 

fulfil thy promise, for the hour has come. 

I 'm hunted from the kingdom, like a wolf ! 

Fulfil thy promise. 

Prec. 'T was my father's promise, 

Not mine. I never gave my heart to 
thee, 

Nor promised thee my hand ! 

Bart. False tongue of woman ! 

And heart more false ! 

Prec. Nay, listen unto me. 

I will speak frankly. I have never loved 
thee ; 

I cannot love thee. This is not my fault, 

It is my destiny. Thou art a man 

Restless and violent. What wouldst thou 
with me, 

A feeble girl, who have not long to live, 

Whose heart is broken? Seek another 
wife, 



Better than I, and fairer ; and let not 
Thy rash and headlong moods estrange her 

from thee. 
Thou art unhappy in this hopeless passion. 
I never sought thy love ; never did aught 
To make thee love me. Yet I pity thee, 
And most of all I pity thy wild heart, 
That hurries thee to crimes and deeds o. 

blood. 
Beware, beware of that. 

Bart. For thy dear sake 

1 will be gentle. Thou shalt teach me 
patience. 
Prec. Then take this farewell, and depart 
in peace. 
Thou must not linger here. 

Bart. Come, come with me, 

Prec. Hark ! I hear footsteps. 
Bart. I entreat thee, come ' 

Prec. Away ! It is in vain. 
Bart. Wilt thou not con ie ? 

Prec. Never ! 

Bart. Then woe, eternal woe, upon thee ! 
Thou shalt not be another's. Thou shalt 
die. &*f 

Prec. All holy angels keep me in this 
hour ! 
Spirit of her who bore me, look upon me ! 
Mother of God, the glorified, protect me ! 
Christ and the saints, be merciful unto me ! 
Yet why should I fear death? W r hat is it 

to die ? 
To leave all disappointment, care, and sor- 
row, 
To leave all falsehood, treachery, and un- 

kindness, 
All ignominy, suffering, and despair, 
And be at rest forever ! O dull heart, 
Be of good cheer ! W r hen thou shalt ceas© 

to beat, 
Then shalt thou cease to suffer and com- 
plain ! 
(Enter Victorian and Htpolito behind.) 
Vict. 'Tis she! Behold, how beautiful 
she stands 
Under the tent-like trees ! 

Hyp. A woodland nymph 1 

Vict. I pray thee, stand aside. Leave me. 
Hyp. Be wary. 

Do not betray thyself too soon. 

Vict, (disguising his voice). Hist ! Gypsy 1 
Prec. (aside, with emotion). That voice I 
that voice from heave**. ! Oh, sneak 
again ! 
Who is it calls ? 



5° 



THE SPANISH STUDENT 



Vict. A friend. 

Prec. (aside). 'Tishe! 'Tishe! 

I thank thee, Heaven, that thou hast heard 

my prayer, 
And sent me this protector ! Now be 

strong, 
Be strong, my heart ! I must dissemble 

here. 
False friend or true ? 

Vict. A true friend to the true ; 

Fear not ; come hither. So ; can you tell 
fortunes ? 
Prec. Not in the dark. Come nearer to 
the fire. 
Give me your hand. It is not crossed, I 
see. 
Vict, {putting a piece of gold into her 

hand). There is the cross. 
Prec. Is 't silver ? 

Vict. No, 't is gold. 

Prec. There 's a fair lady at the Court, 
who loves you, 
And for yourself alone. 

Vict. Fie ! the old story ! 

Tell me a better fortune for my money ; 
Not this old woman's tale ! 

Prec. You are passionate ; 

And this same passionate humor in your 

blood 
Has marred your fortune. Yes ; I see it 

now ; 
The line of life is crossed by many marks 
Shame ! shame ! Oh, you have wronged 

the maid who loved you ! 
How could you do it ? 

Vict. I never loved a maid ; 

For she I loved was then a maid no more. 
Prec. How know you that ? 
Vict. A little bird in the air 

Whispered the secret. 

Prec. There, take back your gold ! 

Your hand is cold, like a deceiver's hand ! 
There is no blessing in its charity ! 
Make her your wife, for you have been 

abused ; 
And you shall mend your fortunes, mend- 
ing hers. 
Vict, (aside). How like an angel's speaks 
the tongue of woman, 
When pleading in another's cause her 

own ! 
That is a pretty ring upon your finger. 
Pray give it me. (Tries to take the ring.) 

Prec. No ; never from my hand 

Shall that be taken ! 



Vict. Why, 't is but a ring 

I '11 give it back to you ; or, if I keep it, 
Will give you gold to buy you twenty 
such. 
Prec. Why would you have this ring ? 
Vict. A traveller's fancy, 

A whim, and nothing more. I would fain 

keep it 
As a memento of the Gypsy camp 
In Guadarrama, and the fortune-teller 
Who sent me back to wed a widowed 

maid. 
Pray, let me have the ring. 

Prec. No, never ! never ! 

I will not part with it, even when I die ; 
But bid my nurse fold my pale fingers 

thus, 
That it may not fall from them. 'T is a 

token 
Of a beloved friend, who is no more. 

Vict. How ? dead ? 

Prec. Yes ; dead to me ; and worse than 
dead. 
He is estranged ! And yet I keep this 

ring. 
I will rise with it from my grave here- 
after, 
To prove to him that I was never false. 
Vict, (aside). Be still, my swelling 
heart ! one moment, still ! 
Why, 't is the folly of a love-sick girl. 
Come, give it me, or I will say 't is mine, 
And that you stole it. 

Prec. Oh, you will not dare 

To utter such a falsehood ! 

Vict. I not dare ? 

Look in my face, and say if there is 

aught 
I have not dared, I would not dare foi 
thee ! 

(She rushes into Ms arms.) 

Prec. 'T is thou ! 't is thou ! Yes; yes; 
my heart's elected ! 
My dearest-dear Victorian ! my soul's 

heaven ! 
Where bast thou been so long? Why 
didst thou leave me ? 
Vict. Ask me not now, my dearest Pre- 
ciosa. 
Let me forget we ever have been parted ! 
Prec. Hadst thou not come — 
Vict. I pray thee, do not chide me ! 

Prec. I should have perished here among 
these Gypsies. 



THE SPANISH STUDENT 



51 



Vict. Forgive me, sweet ! for what I 
made thee suffer. 

Think'st thou this heart could feel a mo- 
ment's joy, 

Thou being absent ? Oh, believe it not ! 

Indeed, since that sad hour I have not 
slept, 

For thinking of the wrong I did to thee ! 

Dost thou forgive me ? Say, wilt thou 
forgive me ? 
Prec. I have forgiven thee. Ere those 
words of anger 

Were in the book of Heaven writ down 
against thee, 

I had forgiven thee. 

Vict. I 'm the veriest fool 

That walks the earth, to have believed 
thee false. 

It was the Count of Lara — 

Prec. That bad man 

Has worked me harm enough. Hast thou 
not heard — 
Vict. I have heard all. And yet speak 
on, speak on ! 

Let me but hear thy voice, and I am 
happy ; 

For every tone, like some sweet incanta- 
tion, 

Calls up the buried past to plead for me. 

Speak, my beloved, speak into my heart, 

Whatever fills and agitates thine own. 
{They walk aside..) 
Hyp. All gentle quarrels in the pastoral 
poets, 

All passionate love-scenes in the best ro- 
mances, 

All chaste embraces on the public stage, 

All soft adventures, which the liberal stars 

Have winked at, as the natural course of 
things, 

Have been surpassed here by my friend, 
the student, 

And this sweet Gypsy lass, fair Preciosa ! 
Prec. Senor Hypolito ! I kiss your hand. 

Pray, shall I tell your fortune ? 

Hyp. Not to-night ; 

For, should you treat me as you did Vic- 
torian, 

And send me back to marry maids forlorn, 

My wedding day would last from now till 
Christmas. 
Chispa (within). What ho ! the Gyp- 
sies, ho ! Beltran Cruzado I 

Halloo ! halloo ! halloo ! halloo ! 

(Enters booted, with a whip and lantern.) 



Vict. What now ? 

Why such a fearful din ? Hast thou been 
robbed ? 
Chispa. Ay, robbed and murdered ; and 
good evening to you, 
My worthy masters. 

Vict. Speak ; what brings thee here ? 
Chispa (to Preciosa). Good news from 
Court ; good news ! Beltran Cru- 
zado, 
The Count of the Calds, is not your father. 
But your true father has returned to Spain 
Laden with wealth. You are no more a 
Gypsy. 
Vict. Strange as a Moorish tale ! 
Chispa. And we have all 

Been drinking at the tavern to your health, 
As wells drink in November, when it rains. 
Vict. Where is the gentleman ? 
Chispa. As the old song says, 

His body is in Segovia, 
His soul is in Madrid. 

Prec. Is this a dream ? Oh, if it be a 

dream, 
Let me sleep on, and do not wake me yet ! 
Repeat thy story ! Say I 'm not deceived ! 
Say that I do not dream ! I am awake ; 
This is the Gypsy camp ; this is Victorian, 
And this his friend, Hypolito ! Speak ! 

speak ! 
Let me not wake and find it all a dream ! 
Vict. It is a dream, sweet child ! a 

waking dream, 
A blissful certainty, a vision bright 
Of that rare happiness, which even on 

earth 
Heaven gives to those it loves. Now art 

thou rich, 
As thou wast ever beautiful and good ; 
And I am now the beggar. 

Prec. (giving him her hand). I have still 
A hand to give. 

Chispa (aside). And I have two to take. 
I 've heard my grandmother say, that 

Heaven gives almonds 
To those who have no teeth. That 's nats 

to crack. 
I 've teeth to spare, but where shall I find 

almonds ? 
Vict. What more of this strange story ? 
Chispa. Nothing more. 

Your friend, Don Carlos, is now at the vit 

lage 
Showing to Pedro Crespo, the Alcalde. 



52 



THE SPANISH STUDENT 



The proofs of what I tell you. The old 
hag, 

Who stole you in your childhood, has con- 
fessed ; 

And probably they '11 hang her for the 
crime, 

To make the celebration more complete. 
Vict. No ; let it be a day of general joy ; 

Fortune comes well to all, that comes not 
late. 

Now let us join Don Carlos. 

Hyp. So farewell, 

The student's wandering life ! Sweet ser- 
enades, 

Sung under ladies' windows in the night, 

And all that makes vacation beautiful ! 

To you, ye cloistered shades of Aleaia, 

To you, ye radiant visions of romance, 

Written in books, but here surpassed by 
truth, 

The Bachelor Hypolito returns, 

And leaves the Gypsy with the Spanish 
Student. 



Scene VI. — A pass in the Guadarrama mountains. 
Early morning. A muleteer crosses the stage, sitting 
sideways on his mule, and lighting a paper cigar with 
flint and steel. 



If thou art sleeping, maiden, 

Awake and open thy door, 
'T is the break of day, and we must away 

O'er meadow, and mount, and moor. 

Wait not to find thy slippers, 

But come with thy naked feet ; 
We shall have to pass through the dewy grass, 

And waters wide and fleet,, 

{Disappears down the pass. Enter a Monk. A Shep- 
herd appears on the rocks above.) 

Monk. Ave Maria, gratia plena. Old, ! 
good man ! 

Shep. Ola! 

Monk. Is this the road to Segovia ? 

■Shep. It is, your reverence. 

Monk. How far is it ? 

Shep. I do not know. 

Monk. What is that yonder in the val- 
ley ? 

Shep. San Ildefonso 

Monk. A long way to breakfast. 

Shep. Ay, marry. 

Monk. Are there robbers in these moun- 
tains ? 

Shep. Yes, and worse than that. 

Monk. What? 



Shep. Wolves. 

Monk. Santa Maria ! Come with me to 
San Ildefonso, and thou shalt be well re- 
warded. 

Shep. What wilt thou give me ? 

Monk. An Agnus Dei and my benedu> 
tion. 

{They disappear. A mounted Contrabandist passes 
wrapped in his cloak, and a gun at his saddle-bow 
He goes down the pass singing.) 

SONG 

Worn with speed is my good steed, 

And I march me hurried, worried ; 

Onward, caballito mio, 

With the white star in thy forehead I 

Onward, for here comes the Ronda, 

And I hear their rifles crack ! 

Ay, jale*o ! Ay, ay, jaldo ! 

Ay, jaldo ! They cross our track. 

(Song dies away. Enter Preciosa, on horseback, aU 
tended by Victorian, Hypolito, Don Carlos, and 
Chispa, on foot and armed.) 

Vict. This is the highest point. Here let 
us rest. 
See, Preciosa, see how all about us 
Kneeling, like hooded friars, the misty 

mountains 
Receive the benediction of the sun ! 
O glorious sight ! 

Free. Most beautiful indeed I 

Hyp. Most wonderful ! 

Vict. And in the vale below, 

Where yonder steeples flash like lifted hal- 
berds, 
San Ildefonso, from its noisy belfries, 
Sends up a salutation to the morn, 
As if an army smote their brazen shields, 
And shouted victory ! 

Prec. And which way lies 

Segovia ? 

Vict. At a great distance yonder. 
Dost thou not see it ? 

Prec. No. I do not see it. 

Vict. The merest flaw that dents the 
horizon's edge, 
There, yonder ! 

Hyp. 'T is a notable old town, 

Boasting an ancient Roman aqueduct, 
And an Alcazar, budded by the Moors, 
Wherein, you may remember, poor Gil Blai 
Was fed on Pan del Rey. Oh, many a timv. 
Out of its grated windows have I looked 
Hundreds of feet plumb down to tb 
Eresma, 



THE SPANISH STUDENT 



53 



That, like a serpent through the valley 

creeping, 
Glides at its foot. 

Prec. Oh yes ! I see it now, 

Yet rather with ray heart than with mine 

eyes, 
So faint it is. And all my thoughts sail 

thither, 
Freighted with prayers and hopes, and for- 
ward urged 
Against all stress of accident, as in 
The Eastern Tale, against the wind and tide 
Great ships were drawn to the Magnetic 

Mountains, 
And there were wrecked, and perished in 

the sea I (Sheiveeps.) 
Vict. O gentle spirit ! Thou didst bear 
unmoved 
Blasts of adversity and frosts of fate ! 
But the first ray of ounshine that falls on 

thee 
Melts thee to tears ! Oh, let thy weary heart 
Lean upon mine ! and it shall faint no 

more, 
No? thirst, nor hunger ; but be comforted 
And filbd with my affection. 

Pr*c. Stay no longer ! 

My father waits. Methinks I see him 

there, 
jtfow looking from the window, and now 

watching 



Each sound of wheels or footfall in the 

street, 
And saying, " Hark ! she comes ! " O 
father ! father ! 
{They descend the pass. Chispa remains behind.') 
Chispa. I have a father, too, but he is a 
dead one. Alas and alack-a-day ! Poor 
was I born, and poor do I remain. I neither 
win nor lose. Thus I wag through the 
world, half the time on foot, and the other 
half walking ; and always as merry as a 
thunder-storm in the night. And so we 
plough along, as the fly said to the ox. 
Who knows what may happen ? Patience, 
and shuffle the cards ! I am not yet so bald 
that you can see my brains ; and perhaps, 
after all, I shall some day go to Rome, and 
come back Saint Peter. Benedicite ! {Exit. 



(A pause. 



Then enter Bartolom^ wildly, as if in pur- 
suit, with a carbine in his hand.) 



Bart. They passed this way. I hear their 
horses' hoofs ! 
Yonder I see them ! Come, sweet cara 

millo, 
This serenade shall be the Gypsy's last ! 

(Fires down the pass.) 
Ha ! ha ! Well whistled, my sweet cara- 

millo ! 
Well whistled ! — I have missed her ! — C 
my God ! 
(The shot is returned. BabtolomA/oW*.) 



THE BELFRY OF BRUGES AND OTHER POEMS 



THE BELFRY OF BRUGES 

CARILLON 

In the ancient town of Bruges, 
In the quaint old Flemish city, 
As the evening shades descended, 
Low and loud and sweetly blended, 
Low at times and loud at times, 
And changing like a poet's rhymes, 
Rang the beautiful wild chimes 
From the Belfry in the market 
Of the ancient town of Bruges. 

Then, with deep sonorous clangor 
Calmly answering their sweet anger, 
When the wrangling bells had ended, 
Slowly struck the clock eleven, 
And, from out the silent heaven, 
Silence on the town descended. 
Silence, silence everywhere, 
On the earth and in the air, 
Save that footsteps here and there 
Of some burgher home returning, 
By the street lamps faintly burning, 
For a moment woke the echoes 
Of the ancient town of Bruges. 

But amid my broken slumbers 
Still I heard those magic numbers, 
As they loud proclaimed the flight 
And stolen marches of the night; 
Till their chimes in sweet collision 
Mingled with each wandering vision, 
Mingled with the fortune-telling 
Gypsj'-bands of dreams and fancies, 
Which amid the waste expanses 
Of the silent land of trances 
Have their solitary dwelling; 
All else seemed asleep in Bruges, 
In the quaint old Flemish city. 

And I thought how like these chimes 
Are the poet's airy rhymes, 
All his rhymes and roundelays, 
His conceits, and songs, and ditties, 
From the belfry of his brain, 
Scattered downward, though in vain, 
On the roofs and stones of cities ! 
For by night the drowsy ear 
Under its curtains cannot hear, 



And by day men go their ways, 
Hearing the music as they pass, 
But deeming it no more, alas ! 
Than the hollow sound of brass. 

Yet perchance a sleepless wight, 

Lodging at some humble inn 

In the narrow lanes of life, 

When the dusk and hush of night 

Shut out the incessant din 

Of daylight and its toil and strife, 

May listen with a calm delight 

To the poet's melodies, 

Till he hears, or dreams he hears, 

Intermingled with the song, 

Thoughts that he has cherished long; 

Hears amid the chime and singing 

The bells of his own village ringing, 

And wakes, and finds his slumberoar 

eyes 
Wet with most delicious tears. 

Thus dreamed I, as by night I lay 
In Bruges, at the Fleur-de-Ble', 
Listening with a wild delight 
To the chimes that, through the night, 
Rang their changes from the Belfry 
Of that quaint old Flemish city. 



THE BELFRY OF BRUGES 

In the market-place of Bruges stands the 

belfry old and brown; 
Thrice consumed and thrice rebuilded, still 

it watches o'er the town. 

As the summer morn was breaking, on that 

lofty tower I stood, 
And the world threw off the darkness, like 

the weeds of widowhood. 

Thick with towns and hamlets studded, 
and with streams and vapors gray, 

Like a shield embossed with silver, round 
and vast the landscape lay. 

At my feet the city slumbered. From its 
chimneys, here and there, 

Wreaths of snow-white smoke, ascending, 
vanished, ghost-like, into air. 



A GLEAM OF SUNSHINE 



55 



Not a sound rose from the city at that 

early morning hour, 
But I heard a heart of iron beating iu the 

ancient tower. 

From their nests beneath the rafters sang 
the swallows wild and high; 

And the world, beneath me sleeping, 
seemed more distant than the sky. 

Then most musical and solemn, bringing 

back- the olden times, 
With their strange, unearthly changes 

rang the melancholy chimes, 

Like the psalms from some old cloister, 
when the nuns sing in the choir; 

And the great bell tolled among them, like 
the chanting of a friar. 

Visions of the days departed, shadowy 

phantoms filled my brain; 
They who live in history only seemed to 

walk the earth again; 

All the Foresters of Flanders, — mighty 

Baldwin Bras de Fer, 
Lyderick du Bucq and Cressy, Philip, Guy 

de Dampierre. 

I beheld the pageants splendid that adorned 

those days of old; 
Stately dames, like queens attended, knights 

who bore the Fleece of Gold; 

Lombard and Venetian merchants with 

deep-laden argosies; 
Ministers from twenty nations; more than 

royal pomp and ease. 

I beheld proud Maximilian, kneeling hum- 
bly on the ground; 

I beheld the gentle Mary, hunting with her 
hawk and hound; 

And her lighted bridal-chamber, where a 
duke slept with the queen, 

And the armed guard around them, and 
the sword unsheathed between. 

I beheld the Flemish weavers, with Namur 

and Juliers bold, 
Marching homeward from the bloody battle 

of the Spurs of Gold; 



Saw the fight at Minnewater, saw the White 

Hoods moving west, 
Saw great Artevelde victorious scale the 

Golden Dragon's nest. 

And again the whiskered Spaniard all tli€ 

land with terror smote; 
And again the wild alarum sounded froni 

the tocsin's throat; 

Till the bell of Ghent responded o'er lagoon 

and dike of sand, 
" I am Roland ! I am Roland ! there is 

victory in the land ! " 

Then the sound of drums aroused me. The 

awakened city's roar 
Chased the phantoms I had summoned 

back into their graves once more. 

Hours had passed away like minutes; and, 

before I was aware, 
Lo ! the shadow of the belfry crossed the 

sun-illumined square. 



A GLEAM OF SUNSHINE 

This is the place. Stand still, my steed, 

Let me review the scene, 
And summon from the shadowy Past 

The forms that once have been. 

The Past and Present here unite 

Beneath Time's flowing tide, 
Like footprints hidden by a brook, 

But seen on either side. 

Here runs the highway to the town; 

There the green lane descends, 
Through which I walked to church with 
thee, 

O gentlest of my friends ! 

The shadow of the linden-trees 

Lay moving on the grass; 
Between them and the moving boughs, 

A shadow, thou didst pass. 

Thy dress was like the lilies, 
And thy heart as pure as they: 

One of God's holy messengers 
Did walk with me that day. 



5° 



THE BELFRY OF BRUGES 



I saw the branches of the trees 


But from their silent pipes no anthem peal- 


Bend down thy touch to meet, 


ing 


The clover-blossoms in the grass 


Startles the villages with strange alarms. 


Rise up to kiss thy feet. 






Ah ! what a sound will rise, how wild and 


" Sleep, sleep to-day, tormenting cares, 


dreary, 


Of earth and folly born! " 


When the death-angel touches those swift 


Solemnly sang the village choir 


keys ! 


On that sweet Sabbath morn. 


What loud lament and dismal Miserere 




Will mingle with their awful sympho- 


Through the closed blinds the golden sun 


nies ! 


Poured in a dusty beam, 




Like the celestial ladder seen 


I hear even now the infinite fierce chorus, 


By Jacob in his dream. 


The cries of agony, the endless groan, 




Which, through the ages that have gone 


And ever and anon, the wind, 


before us, 


Sweet-scented with the hay, 


In long reverberations reach our own. 


Turned o'er the hymn-book's fluttering 




leaves 


On helm and harness rings the Saxon ham- 


That on the window lay. 


mer, 




Through Cimbric forest roars the Norse- 


Long was the good man's sermon, 


man's song, 


Yet it seemed not so to me; 


And loud, amid the universal clamor, 


For he spake of Ruth the beautiful, 


O'er distant deserts sounds the Tartar 


And still I thought of thee. 


gong. 


Long was the prayer he uttered, 


I hear the Florentine, who from his 


Yet it seemed not so to me; 


palace 


For in my heart I prayed with him, 


Wheels out his battle-bell with dreadful 


And still I thought of thee. 


din, 




And Aztec priests upon their teocallis 


But now, alas ! the place seems changed; 


Beat the wild war-drums made of ser- 


Thou art no longer here: 


pent's skin; 


Part of the sunshine of the scene 




With thee did disappear. 


The tumult of each sacked and burning 




village ; 


Though thoughts, deep-rooted in my heart, 


The shout that every prayer for mercy 


Like pine-trees dark and high, 


drowns; 


Subdue the light of noon, and breathe 


The soldiers' revels in the midst of pil- 


A low and ceaseless sigh; 


lage; 




The wail of famine in beleaguered towns; 


This memory brightens o'er the past, 




As when the sun, concealed 


The bursting shell, the gateway wrenched 


behind some cloud that near us hangs, 


asunder, 


Shines on a distant field. 


The rattling musketry, the clashing 




blade ; 




And ever and anon, in tones of thunder 


THE ARSENAL AT SPRINGFIELD 


The diapason of the cannonade. 


This is the Arsenal. From floor to ceiling, 


Is it, man, with such discordant noises, 


Like a huge organ, rise the burnished 


With such accursed instruments as 


arms; 


these, 



NUREMBERG 



57 



Thou drownest Nature's sweet and kindly 
voices, 
And jarrest the celestial harmonies ? 

Were half the power that fills the world 
with terror, 
Were half the wealth bestowed on camps 
and courts, 
Given to redeem the human mind from 
error, 
There were no need of arsenals or forts : 

The warrior's name would be a name ab- 
horred ! 
And every nation, that should lift again 
Its hand against a brother, on its fore- 
head 
Would wear forevermore the curse of 
Cain! 

Down the dark future, through long gener- 
ations, 
The echoing sounds grow fainter and then 
cease; 
And like a bell, with solemn, sweet vibra- 
tions, 
I hear once more the voice of Christ say, 
" Peace ! " 

Peace ! and no longer from its brazen por- 
tals 
The blast of War's great organ shakes 
the skies ! 
But beautiful as songs of the immortals, 
The holy melodies of love arise. 



NUREMBERG 

In the valley of the Pegnitz, where across 
broad meadow-lands 

Rise the blue Franconian mountains, Nu- 
remberg, the ancient, stands. 

Quaint old town of toil and traffic, quaint 

old town of art and song, 
Memories haunt thy pointed gables, like 

the rooks that round them throng : 

Memories of the Middle Ages, when the 
emperors, rough and bold, 

Had their dwelling in thy castle, time- 
defying, centuries old; 



And thy brave and thrifty burghers boasted, 

in their uncouth rhyme, 
That their great imperial city stretched its 

hand through every clime. 

In the court-yard of the castle, bound with 

many an iron band, 
Stands the mighty linden planted by Queen 

Cunigunde's hand; 

On the square the oriel window, where in 
old heroic days 

Sat the poet Melchior singing Kaiser Maxi- 
milian's praise. 

Everywhere I see around me rise the won- 
drous world of Art : 

Fountains wrought with richest sculpture 
standing in the common mart; 

And above cathedral doorways saints and 

bishops carved in stone, 
By a former age commissioned as apostles 

to our own. 

In the church of sainted Sebald sleeps en- 
shrined his holy dust, 

And in bronze the Twelve Apostles guard 
from age to age their trust; 

In the church of sainted Lawrence stands 

a pix of sculpture rare, 
Like the foamy sheaf of fountains, rising 

through the painted air. 

Here, when Art was still religion, with a 

simple, reverent heart, 
Lived and labored Albrecht Diirer, the 

Evangelist of Art; 

Hence in silence and in sorrow, toiling still 

with busy hand, 
Like an emigrant he wandered, seeking for 

the Better Land. 

Emigravit is the inscription on the tomb- 
stone where he lies; 

Dead he is not, but departed, — for the 
artist never dies. 

Fairer seems the ancient city, and the sun- 
shine seems more fair, 

That he once has trod its pavement, that 
he once has breathed its air ! 



5» 



THE BELFRY OF BRUGES 



Through these streets so broad and stately, 
these obscure and dismal lanes, 

Walked of yore the Mastersingers, chanting 
rude poetic strains. 

From remote and sunless suburbs came 
they to the friendly guild, 

Building nests in Fame's great temple, as 
in spouts the swallows build. 

As the weaver plied the shuttle, wove he 

too the mystic rhyme, 
And the smith his iron measures hammered 

to the anvil's chime; 

Thanking God, whose boundless wisdom 
makes the flowers of poesy bloom 

In the forge's dust and cinders, in the tis- 
sues of the loom. 

Here Hans Sachs, the cobbler-poet, laureate 

of the gentle craft, 
Wisest of the Twelve Wise Masters, in 

huge folios sang and laughed. 

But his house is now an ale-house, with a 

nicely sanded floor, 
And a garland in the window, and his face 

above the door; 

Painted by some humble artist, as in Adam 

Puschman's song, 
As the old man gray and dove-like, with 

his great beard white and long. 

And at night the swart mechanic comes to 

drown his cark and care, 
Quaffing ale from pewter tankards, in the 

master's antique chair. 

Vanished is the ancient splendor, and be- 
fore my dreamy eye 

Wave these mingled shapes and figures, 
like a faded tapestry. 

Not thy Councils, not thy Kaisers, win for 

thee the world's regard ; 
But thy painter, Albrecht Diirer, and Hans 

Sachs thy cobbler bard. 

Thus, O Nuremberg, a wanderer from a 

region far away, 
As he paced thy streets and court-yards, 

sang in thought his careless lay: 



Gathering from the pavement's crevice, as 

a floweret of the soil, 
The nobility of labor, — the long pedigree 

of toil. 



THE NORMAN BARON 

Dans les moments de la vie oil la reflexion devient plus 
calme et plus profonde, oil l'interet et l'avarice parlent 
moins haut que la raison, dans les instants de chagrin 
domestique, de maladie, et de pe>il de mort, les nobles 
se repentirent de poss^der des serfs, comme d'une 
chose peu agr^able a Dieu, qui avait cr6e" tous les 
homiues a son image. — Conquete de VAngleterre. 

In his chamber, weak and dying, 
Was the Norman baron lying; 
Loud, without, the tempest thundered, 
And the castle-turret shook. 

In this fight was Death the gainer, 
Spite of vassal and retainer, 
And the lands his sires had plundered, 
Written in the Doomsday Book.. 

By his bed a monk was seated, 
Who in humble voice repeated 
Many a prayer and pater-noster, 

From the missal on his knee, 

And, amid the ten pest pealing, 
Sounds of bells came faintly stealing, 
Bells, that from the neighboring kloster 
Rang for the Nativity. 

In the hall, the serf and vassal 

Held, that night, their Christmas wassail? 

Many a carol, old and saintly, 

Sang the minstrels and the waits; 

And so loud these Saxon gleemen 
Sang to slaves the songs of freemen, 
That the storm was heard but faintly, 
Knocking at the castle-gates. 

Till at length the lays they chanted 
Reached the chamber terror-haunted, 
Where the monk, with accents holy, 
Whispered at the baron's ear. 

Tears upon his eyelids glistened, 
As he paused awhile and listened, 
And the dying baron slowly 

Turned his weary head to hear. 



RAIN IN SUMMER 



59 



; Wassail for the kingly stranger 
Born and cradled in a manger ! 
King, like David, priest, like Aaron, 
Christ is born to set us free ! " 

And the lightning showed the sainted 
Figures on the casement painted, 
And exclaimed the shuddering baron, 
" Miserere, Domine ! " 

In that hour of deep contrition 
He beheld, with clearer vision, 
Through all outward show and fashion, 
Justice, the Avenger, rise. 

All the pomp of earth had vanished, 
Falsehood and deceit were banished, 
Reason spake more loud than passion, 
And the truth wore no disguise. 

Every vassal of his banner, 
Every serf born to his manor, 
All those wronged and wretched crea- 
tures, 

By his hand were freed again. 

And, as on the sacred missal 
He recorded their dismissal, 
Death relaxed his iron features, 

And the monk replied, "Amen !" 

Many centuries have been numbered 
Since in death the baron slumbered 
By the convent's sculptured portal, 

Mingling with the common dust : 

But the good deed, through the ages 
Living in historic pages, 
Brighter grows and gleams immortal, 
Unconsumed by moth or rust. 



RAIN IN SUMMER 

How beautiful is the rain ! 

After the dust and heat, 

In the broad and fiery street, 

In the narrow lane, 

How beautiful is the rain ! 

How it clatters along the roofs, 

Like the tramp of hoofs ! 

How it gushes and struggles out 

From the throat of the overflowing spout ! 



Across the window-pane 

It pours and pours ; 

And swift and wide, 

With a muddy tide, 

Like a river down the gutter roars 

The rain, the welcome rain ! 

The sick man from his chamber looks 

At the twisted brooks ; 

He can feel the cool 

Breath of each little pool ; 

His fevered brain 

Grows calm again, 

And he breathes a blessing on the rain. 

From the neighboring school 

Come the boys, 

With more than their wonted noise 

And commotion ; 

And down the wet streets 

Sail their mimic fleets, 

Till the treacherous pool 

Ingulfs them in its whirling 

And turbulent ocean. 

In the country, on every side, 

Where far and wide, 

Like a leopard's tawny and spotted hide, 

Stretches the plain, 

To the dry grass and the drier grain 

How welcome is the rain ! 

In the furrowed land 

The toilsome and patient oxen stand ; 

Lifting the yoke-encumbered head, 

With their dilated nostrils spread, 

They silently inhale 

The clover-scented gale, 

And the vapors that arise 

From the well- watered and smoking soiL 

For this rest in the furrow after toil 

Their large and lustrous eyes 

Seem to thank the Lord, 

More than man's spoken word. 

Near at hand, 

From under the sheltering trees, 

The farmer sees 

His pastures, and his fields of graiD, 

As they bend their tops 

To the numberless beating drops 

Of the incessant rain. 

He counts it as no sin 

That he sees therein 

Only his own thrift and gain. 



6o 



THE BELFRY OF BRUGES 



These, and far more than these, 

The Poet sees ! 

He can behold 

Aquarius old 

Walking the fenceless fields of air; 

And from each ample fold 

Of the clouds about him rolled 

Scattering everywhere 

The showery rain, 

As the farmer scatters his grain. 

He can behold 

Things manifold 

That have not yet been wholly told, — 

Have not been wholly sung nor said. 

For his thought, that never stops, 

Follows the water-drops 

Down to the graves of the dead, 

Down through chasms and gulfs profound, 

To the dreary fountain-head 

Of lakes and rivers under ground ; 

And sees them, when the rain is done, 

On the bridge of colors seven 

Climbing up once more to heaven, 

Opposite the setting sun. 

Thus the Seer, 

With vision clear, 

Sees forms appear and disappear, 

In the perpetual round of strange, 

Mysterious change 

From birth to death, from death to birth, 

From earth to heaven, from heaven to 

earth; 
Till glimpses more sublime 
Of things unseen before, 
Unto his wondering eyes reveal 
The Universe, as an immeasurable wheel 
Turning forevermore 
In the rapid and rushing river of Time. 



TO A CHILD 



Tn September, 1850, Longfellow made the following 
entry in his diary : " Some years ago, writing an Ode to 
i Child, I spoke of 

The buried treasures of the miser, Time. 

What was my astonishment to-day, in reading for the 
first time in my life Wordsworth's beautiful ode On the 
Power of Sound, to read 

All treasures hoarded by the miser, Time." 



Dear child ! how radiant on thy mother's 

knee, 
With merry-making eyes and jocund smiles, 
Thou gazest at the painted tiles, 
Whose figures grace, 
With many a grotesque form and face, 
The ancient chimney of thy nursery ! 
The lady with the gay macaw, 
The dancing girl, the grave bashaw 
With bearded lip and chin; 
And, leaning idly o'er his gate, 
Beneath the imperial fan of state, 
The Chinese mandarin. 

With what a look of proud command 

Thou shakest in thy little hand 

The coral rattle with its silver bells, 

Making a merry tune ! 

Thousands of years in Indian seas 

That coral grew, by slow degrees, 

Until some deadly and wild monsoon 

Dashed it on Coromandel's sand ! 

Those silver bells 

Reposed of yore, 

As shapeless ore, 

Far down in the deep-sunken wells 

Of darksome mines, 

In some obscure and sunless place, 

Beneath huge Chimborazo's base, 

Or Potosfs o'erhanging pines ! 

And thus for thee, O little child, 

Through many a danger and escape, 

The tall ships passed the stormy cape; 

For thee in foreign lands remote, 

Beneath a burning, tropic clime, 

The Indian peasant, chasing the wild goaf^ 

Himself as swift and wild, 

In falling, clutched the frail arbute, 

The fibres of whose shallow root, 

Uplifted from the soil, betrayed 

The silver veins beneath it laid, 

The buried treasures of the miser, Time. 

But, lo ! thy door is left ajar ! 

Thou hearest footsteps from afar ! 

And, at the sound, 

Thou turnest round 

With quick and questioning eyes, 

Like one, who, in a foreign land, 

Beholds on every hand 

Some source of wonder and surprise ! 



TO A CHILD 



6r 



And, restlessly, impatiently, 

Thou strivest, strugglest, to be free. 

The four walls of thy nursery 

Are now like prison walls to thee. 

No more thy mother's smiles, 

No more the painted tiles, 

Delight thee, nor the playthings on the 

floor, 
That won thy little, beating heart before; 
Thou strugglest for the open door. 

Through these once solitary halls 
Thy pattering footstep falls. 
The sound of thy merry voice 
Makes the old walls 
Jubilant, and they rejoice 
With the joy of thy young heart, 
O'er the light of whose gladness 
No shadows of sadness 

From the sombre background of memory 
start. 

Once, ah, once, within these walls, 
One whom memory oft recalls, 
The Father of his Country, dwelt. 
And yonder meadows broad and damp 
The fires of the besieging camp 
Encircled with a burning belt. 
Up and down these echoing stairs, 
Heavy with the weight of cares, 
Sounded his majestic tread; 
Yes, within this very room 
Sat he in those hours of gloom, 
Weary both in heart and head. 

But what are these grave thoughts to thee? 

Out, out ! into the open air ! 

Thy only dream is liberty, 

Thou carest little how or where. 

I see thee eager at thy play, 

Now shouting to the apples on the tree, 

With cheeks as round and red as they ; 

And now among the yellow stalks, 

Among the flowering shrubs and plants, 

As restless as the bee. 

Along the garden walks, 

The tracks of thy small carriage-wheels I 

trace ; 
And see at every turn how they efface 
Whole villages of sand-roofed tents, 
That rise like golden domes 



Above the cavernous and secret homes 

Of wandering and nomadic tribes of ants. 

Ah, cruel little Tamerlane, 

Who, with thy dreadful reign, 

Dost persecute and overwhelm 

These hapless Troglodytes of thy realm ! 

What ! tired already ! with those suppliant 

looks, 
And voice more beautiful than a poet's 

books 
Or murmuring sound of water as it flows, 
Thou comest back to parley with repose ! 
This rustic seat in the old apple-tree, 
With its o'erhanging golden canopy 
Of leaves illuminate with autumnal hues, 
And shining with the argent light of 

dews, 
Shall for a season be our place of rest. 
Beneath us, like an oriole's pendent nest, 
From which the laughing birds have taken 

wing, 
By thee abandoned, hangs thy vacant 

swing. 
Dream-like the waters of the river gle*»m : 
A sailless vessel drops adown the stream 
And like it, to a sea as wide and deep f 
Thou driftest gently down the tide />f 

sleep. 

child ! O new-born denizen 
Of life's great city ! on thy head 
The glory of the morn is shed, 
Like a celestial benison ! 

Here at the portal thou dost stand, 
And with thy little hand 
Thou openest the mysterious gate 
Into the future's undiscovered land. 

1 see its valves expand, 
As at the touch of Fate ! 

Into those realms of love and hate, 

Into that darkness blank and drear, 

By some prophetic feeling taught, 

I launch the bold, adventurous thought^ 

Freighted with hope and fear; 

As upon subterranean streams, 

In caverns unexplored and dark, 

Men sometimes launch a fragile bark, 

Laden with flickering fire, 

And watch its swift-receding beams, 

Until at length they disappear, 

And in the distant dark expire. 



62 



THE BELFRY OF BRUGES 



By what astrology of fear or hope 

Dare I to cast thy horoscope ! 

Like the new moon thy life appears; 

A little strip of silver light, 

And widening outward into night 

The shadowy disk of future years; 

And yet upon its outer rim, 

A luminous circle, faint and dim, 

And scarcely visible to us here, 

Rounds and completes the perfect sphere: 

A prophecy and intimation, 

A pale and feeble adumbration, 

Of the great world of light, that lies 

Behind all human destinies. 

Ah ! if thy fate, with anguish fraught, 
Should be to wet the dusty soil 
With the hot tears and sweat of toil, — 
To struggle with imperious thought, 
Until the overburdened brain, 
Weary with labor, faint with pain, 
Like a jarred pendulum, retain 
Only its motion, not its power, — 
Remember, in that perilous hour, 
When most afflicted and oppressed, 
From labor there shall come forth rest. 

And if a more auspicious fate 

On thy advancing steps await, 

Still let it ever be thy pride 

To linger by the laborer's side; 

With words of sympathy or song 

To cheer the dreary march along 

Of the great army of the poor, 

O'er desert sand, o'er dangerous moor. 

Nor to thyself the task shall be 

Without reward; for thou shalt learn 

The wisdom early to discern 

True beauty in utility; 

As great Pythagoras of yore, 

Standing beside the blacksmith's door, 

And hearing the hammers, as they smote 

The anvils with a different note, 

Stole from the varying tones, that hung 

Vibrant on every iron tongue, 

The secret of the sounding wire, 

And formed the seven-chorded lyre. 

Enough ! I will not play the Seer; 
I will no longer strive to ope 
The mystic volume, where appear 
The herald Hope, forerunning Fear, 



And Fear, the pursuivant of Hope. 
Thy destiny remains untold; 
For, like Acestes' shaft of old, 
The swift thought kindles as it flies, 
And burns to ashes in the skies. 



THE OCCULTATION OF ORION 

I saw, as in a dream sublime, 
The balance in the hand of Time. 
O'er East and West its beam impended; 
And Day, with all its hours of light, 
Was slowly sinking out of sight, 
While, opposite, the scale of Night 
Silently with the stars ascended. 

Like the astrologers of eld, 

In that bright vision I beheld 

Greater and deeper mysteries. 

I saw, with its celestial keys, 

Its chords of air, its frets of fire, 

The Samian's great iEolian lyre, 

Rising through all its sevenfold bars, 

From earth unto the fixed stars. 

And through the dewy atmosphere, 

Not only could I see, but hear, 

Its wondrous and harmonious strings, 

In sweet vibration, sphere by sphere, 

From Dian's circle light and near, 

Onward to vaster and wider rings, 

Where, chanting through his beard of 

snows, 
Majestic, mournful, Saturn goes, 
And down the sunless realms of space 
Reverberates the thunder of his bass. 

Beneath the sky's triumphal arch 
This music sounded like a march, 
And with its chorus seemed to be 
Preluding some great tragedy. 
Sirius was rising in the east; 
And, slow ascending one by one, 
The kindling constellations shone. 
Begirt with many a blazing star, 
Stood the great giant Algebar, 
Orion, hunter of the beast ! 
His sword hung gleaming by his side, 
And, on his arm, the lion's hide 
Scattered across the midnight air 
The golden radiance of its hair. 



THE BRIDGE 



63 



The moon was pallid, but not faint; 
And beautiful as some fair saint, 
Serenely moving on her way 
In hours of trial and dismay. 
As if she heard the voice of God, 
Unharmed with naked feet she trod 
Upon the hot and burning stars, 
As on the glowing coals and bars, 
That were to prove her strength and try 
Her holiness and her purity. 

Thus moving on, with silent pace, 

And triumph in her sweet, pale face, 

She reached the station of Orion. 

Aghast he stood in strange alarm ! 

And suddenly from his outstretched arm 

Down fell the red skin of the lion 

Into the river at his feet. 

His mighty club no longer beat 

The forehead of the bull; but he 

Reeled as of yore beside the sea, 

When, blinded by (Enopion, 

He sought the blacksmith at his forge, 

And, climbing up the mountain gorge, 

Fixed his blank eyes upon the sun. 

Then, through the silence overhead, 

An angel with a trumpet said, 

" Forevermore, forevermore, 

The reign of violence is o'er ! " 

And, like an instrument that flings 

Its music on another's strings, 

The trumpet of the angel cast 

Upon the heavenly lyre its blast, 

And on from sphere to sphere the words 

Reechoed down the burning chords, — 

" Forevermore, forevermore, 

The reign of violence is o'er ! " 



THE BRIDGE 

I stood on the bridge at midnight, 
As the clocks were striking the hour, 

And the moon rose o'er the city, 
Behind the dark church-tower. 

I saw her bright reflection 

In the waters under me, 
Like a golden goblet falling 

And sinking into the sea. 

And far in the hazy distance 
Of that lovely night in June, 



The blaze of the flaming furnace 
Gleamed redder than the moon. 

Among the long, black rafters 

The wavering shadows lay, 
And the current that came from the 
ocean 

Seemed to lift and bear them away; 

As, sweeping and eddying through 
them, 

Rose the belated tide, 
And, streaming into the moonlight, 

The seaweed floated wide. 

And like those waters rushing 

Among the wooden piers, 
A flood of thoughts came o'er me 

That filled my eyes with tears. 

How often, oh how often, 

In the days that had gone by, 

I had stood on that bridge at midnight 
And gazed on that wave and sky ! 

How often, oh how often, 

I had wished that the ebbing tide 
Would bear me away on its bosom 

O'er the ocean wild and wide ! 

For my heart was hot and restless, 
And my life was full of care, 

And the burden laid upon me 

Seemed greater than I could bear. 

But now it has fallen from me, 

It is buried in the sea; 
And only the sorrow of others 

Throws its shadow over me. 

Yet whenever I cross the river 
On its bridge with wooden piers, 

Like the odor of brine from the ocean 
Comes the thought of other years. 

And I think how many thousands 

Of care-encumbered men, 
Each bearing his burden of sorrow, 

Have crossed the bridge since then. 

I see the long procession 

Still passing to and fro, 
The young heart hot and restless, 

And the old subdued and slow ! 



6 4 



THE BELFRY OF BRUGES 



And forever and forever, 
As long as the river flows, 

As long as the heart has passions, 
As long as life has woes; 

The moon and its broken reflection 
And its shadows shall appear, 

As the symbol of love in heaven, 
And its wavering image here. 



TO THE DRIVING CLOUD 

Gloomy and dark art thou, O chief of the 

mighty Omahas; 
Gloomy and dark as the driving cloud, 

whose name thou hast taken ! 
Wrapped in thy scarlet blanket, I see thee 

stalk through the city's 
Narrow and populous streets, as once by 

the margin of rivers 
Stalked those birds unknown, that have left 

only their footprints. 
What, in a few short years, will remain of 

thy race but the footprints ? 

How canst thou walk these streets, who 
hast trod the green turf of the 
prairies ? 

How canst thou breathe this air, who hast 
breathed the sweet air of the moun- 
tains ? 

Ah ! 't is in vain that with lordly looks of 
disdain thou dost challenge 

Looks of disdain in return, and question 
these walls and these pavements, 

Claiming the soil for thy hunting-grounds, 
while down-trodden millions 

Starve in the garrets of Europe, and cry 
from its caverns that they, too, 

Have been created heirs of the earth, and 
claim its division ! 

Back, then, back to thy woods in the regions 
west of the Wabash ! 

There as a monarch thou reignest. In au- 
tumn the leaves of the maple 

Pave the floors of thy palace-halls with 
gold, and in summer 

Pine-trees waft through its chambers the 
odorous breath of their branches. 

There thou art strong and great, a hero, a 
tamer of horses ! 



There thou chasest the stately stag on the 
banks of the Elkhorn, 

Or by the roar of the Running- Water, or 
where the Omaha 

Calls thee, and leaps through the wild ra- 
vine like a brave of the Blackfeet ! 

Hark ! what murmurs arise from the heart 

of those mountainous deserts ? 
Is it the cry of the Foxes and Crows, or the 

mighty Behemoth, 
Who, unharmed, on his tusks once caught 

the bolts of the thunder, 
And now lurks in his lair to destroy the 

race of the red man ? 
Far more fatal to thee and thy race than 

the Crows and the Foxes, 
Far more fatal to thee and thy race than 

the tread of Behemoth, 
Lo ! the big thunder-canoe, that steadily 

breasts the Missouri's 
Merciless current ! and yonder, afar on the 

prairies, the camp-fires 
Gleam through the night; and the cloud of 

dust in the gray of the daybreak 
Marks not the buffalo's track, nor the Man- 
dan's dexterous horse-race; 
It is a caravan, whitening the desert where 

dwell the Camanches ! 
Ha ! how the breath of these Saxons and 

Celts, like the blast of the east-wind, 
Drifts evermore to the west the scanty 

smokes of thy wigwams ! 



SONGS 
THE DAY IS DONE 

The day is done, and the darkness 
Falls from the wings of Night, 

As a feather is wafted downward 
From an eagle in his flight. 

I see the lights of the village 

Gleam through the rain and the mist, 
And a feeling of sadness comes o'er me 

That my soul cannot resist: 

A feeling of sadness and longing, 

That is not akin to pain, 
And resembles sorrow only 

As the mist resembles the rain. 



TO AN OLD DANISH SONG BOOK 



65 



Come, read to me some poem, 


On village windows 


Some simple and heartfelt lay, 


That glimmer red. 


That shall soothe this restless feeling, 




And banish the thoughts of day. 


The snow recommences; 




The buried fences 


Not from the grand old masters, 


Mark no longer 


Not from the bards sublime, 


The road o'er the plain; 


Whose distant footsteps echo 




Through the corridors of Time. 


While through the meadows, 




Like fearful shadows, 


For, like strains of martial music, 


Slowly passes 


Their mighty thoughts suggest 


A funeral train. 


Life's endless toil and endeavor; 




And to-night I long for rest. 


The bell is pealing, 




And every feeling 


Head from some humbler poet, 


Within me responds 


Whose songs gushed from his heart, 


To the dismal knell; 


As showers from the clouds of sum- 




mer, 


Shadows are trailing, 


Or tears from the eyelids start ; 


My heart is bewailing 




And tolling within 


Who, through long days of labor, 


Like a funeral bell. 


And nights devoid of ease, 




Still heard in his soul the music 




Of wonderful melodies. 


TO AN OLD DANISH SONG 




BOOK 


Such songs have power to quiet 




The restless pulse of care, 


Welcome, my old friend, 


And come like the benediction 


Welcome to a foreign fireside, 


That follows after prayer. 


While the sullen gales of autumn 




Shake the windows. 


Then read from the treasured volume 




The poem of thy choice, 


The ungrateful world 


And lend to the rhyme of the poet 


Has, it seems, dealt harshly with thee, 


The beauty of thy voice. 


Since, beneath the skies of Denmark, 




First I met thee. 


And the night shall be filled with music, 




And the cares, that infest the day, 


There are marks of age, 


Shall fold their tents, like the Arabs, 


There are thumb-marks on thy margin. 


And as silently steal away. 


Made by hands that clasped thee rudely 




At the alehouse. 


AFTERNOON IN FEBRUARY 


Soiled and dull thou art; 




Yellow are thy time-worn pages, 


The day is ending, 


As the russet, rain-molested 


The night is descending; 


Leaves of autumn. 


The marsh is frozen, 




The river dead. 


Thou art stained with wine 




Scattered from hilarious goblets, 


Through clouds like ashes 


As the leaves with the libations 


The red sun flashes 


Of Olympus. 



66 



THE BELFRY OF BRUGES 



Yet dost thou recall 
Days departed, half-forgotten, 
When in dreamy youth I wandered 
By the Baltic, — 

When I paused to hear 
The old ballad of King Christian 
Shouted from suburban taverns 
In the twilight. 

Thou recallest bards, 

Who, in solitary chambers, 

And with hearts by passion wasted, 

Wrote thy pages. 

Thou recallest homes 
Where thy songs of love and friendship 
Made the gloomy Northern winter 
Bright as summer. 

Once some ancient Scald, 
In his bleak, ancestral Iceland, 
Chanted staves of these old ballads 
To the Vikings. 

Once in Elsinore, 
At the court of old King Hamlet, 
Yorick and his boon companions 
Sang these ditties. 

Once Prince Frederick's Guard 
Sang them in their smoky barracks ; — 
Suddenly the English cannon 
Joined the chorus ! 

Peasants in the field, 
Sailors on the roaring ocean, 
Students, tradesmen, pale mechanics, 
All have sung them. 

Thou hast been their friend ; 
They, alas ! have left thee friendless ! 
Yet at least by one warm fireside 
Art thou welcome. 

And, as swallows build 
In these wide, old-fashioned chimneys, 
So thy twittering song shall nestle 
In my bosom, — 

Quiet, close, and warm, 
Sheltered from all molestation, 
And recalling by their voices 
Youth and travel. 



WALTER VON DER VOGEL- 
WEID 

Vogelweid the Minnesinger, 
When he left this world of ours, 

Laid his body in the cloister, 

Under Wiirtzburg's minster towers. 

And he gave the monks his treasures, 
Gave them all with this behest : 

They should feed the birds at noontide 
Daily on his place of rest ; 

Saying, " From these wandering minstreJe 
I have learned the art of song ; 

Let me now repay the lessons 

They have taught so well and long." 

Thus the bard of love departed j 

And, fulfilling his desire, 
On his tomb the birds were feasted 

By the children of the choir. 

Day by day, o'er tower and turret, 

In foul weather and in fair, 
Day by day, in vaster numbers, 

Flocked the poets of the air. 

On the tree whose heavy branches 

Overshadowed all the place, 
On the pavement, on the tombstone, 

On the poet's sculptured face, 

On the cross-bars of each window, 

On the lintel of each door, 
They renewed the War of Wartburg, 

Which the bard had fought before. 

There they sang their merry carols, 
Sang their lauds on every side ; 

And the name their voices uttered 
Was the name of Vogelweid. 

Till at length the portly abbot 

Murmured, " Why this waste of food ? 
Be it changed to loaves henceforward 

For our fasting brotherhood." 

Then in vain o'er tower and turret, 
From the walls and woodland nests, 

When the minster bells rang noontide, 
Gathered the unwelcome guests. 



THE OLD CLOCK ON THE STAIRS 



67 



Then in vain, with cries discordant, 
Clamorous round the Gothic spire, 

Screamed the feathered Minnesingers 
For the children of the choir. 

rime has long effaced the inscriptions 
On the cloister's funeral stones, 

And tradition only tells us 

Where repose the poet's bones. 

But around the vast cathedral, 
By sweet echoes multiplied, 

Still the birds repeat the legend, 
And the name of Vogelweid. 



DRINKING SONG 

INSCRIPTION FOR AN ANTIQUE PITCHER 

Come, old friend ! sit down and listen ! 

From the pitcher, placed between us, 
How the waters laugh and glisten 

In the head of old Silenus ! 

Old Silenus, bloated, drunken, 

Led by his inebriate Satyrs; 
On his breast his head is sunken, 

Vacantly he leers and chatters. 

Fauns with youthful Bacchus follow; 

Ivy crowns that brow supernal 
As the forehead of Apollo, 

And possessing youth eternal. 

Round about him, fair Bacchantes, 
Bearing cymbals, flutes, and thyrses, 

Wild from Naxian groves, or Zante's 
Vineyards, sing delirious verses. 

Thus he won, through all the nations, 
Bloodless victories, and the farmer 

Bore, as trophies and oblations, 

Vines for banners, ploughs for armor. 

Judged by no o'erzealous rigor, 

Much this mystic throng expresses: 

Bacchus was the type of vigor, 
And Silenus of excesses. 

These are ancient ethnic revels, 
Of a faith longf since forsaken; 



Now the Satyrs, changed to devils, 
Frighten mortals wine-o'ertaken 

Now to rivulets from the mountains 
Point the rods of fortune-tellers; 

Youth perpetual dwells iu fountains, — 
Not in flasks, and casks, and cellars. 

Claudius, though he sang of flagons 

And huge tankards filled with Rhenish, 

From that fiery blood of dragons 
Never would his own replenish. 

Even Redi, though he chaunted 
Bacchus in the Tuscan valleys, 

Never drank the wine he vaunted 
In his dithyrambic sallies. 

Then with water fill the pitcher 

Wreathed about with classic fables; 

Ne'er Falernian threw a richer 
Light upon Lucullus' tables. 

Come, old friend, sit down and listen ! 

As it passes thus between us, 
How its wavelets laugh and glisten 

In the head of old Silenus ! 



THE OLD CLOCK ON THE 
STAIRS 



Suggested by the words of Bridaine, the old French 
missionary, who said of eternity, C" est nne ptndule (lout 
le balancier dit et redit sans cesse ces deux mots seulc- 
ment dans le silence des torn beaux, — Toujours, jamais ! 
Jamais, toujours ! Et pendant ces effrayables revolu- 
tions, un rSprouvS s' 'eerie, ' Quelle heure est-il ? ' et la 
voix aVun autre miserable lui repond, ' L'Eternite.'' " 



Somewhat back from the village street 
Stands the old-fashioned country-seat. 
Across its antique portico 
Tall poplar-trees their shadows throw; 
And from its station in the hall 
An ancient timepiece says to all, — 
" Forever — never ! 
Never — forever ! " 

Half-way up the stairs it stands, 
And points and beckons with its hands 
From its case of massive oak, 
Like a monk, who, under his cloak, 



63 



THE BELFRY OF BRUGES 



Crosses himself, and sighs, alas ! 
With sorrowful voice to all who pass, — 
" Forever — never ! 
Never — forever ! " 

By day its voice is low and light; 
But in the silent dead of night, 
Distinct as a passing footstep's fall, 
It echoes along the vacant hall, 
Along the ceiling, along the floor, 
And seems to say, at each chamber-door, — 
" Forever — never ! 
Never — forever ! " 

Through days of sorrow and of mirth, 
Through days of death and days of birth, 
Through every swift vicissitude 
Of changeful time, unchanged it has 

stood, 
And as if, like God, it all things saw, 
It calmly repeats those words of awe, — 

" Forever — never ! 
Never — forever ! " 

In that mansion used to be 
Free-hearted Hospitality; 
His great fires up the chimney roared; 
The stranger feasted at his board ; 
But, like the skeleton at the feast, 
That warning timepiece never ceased, — 
" Forever — never ! 
Never — forever ! " 

There groups of merry children played, 
There youths and maidens dreaming 

strayed; 
O precious hours ! O golden prime, 
And affluence of love and time ! 
Even as a miser counts his gold, 
Those hours the ancient timepiece told, — 

" Forever — never ! 
Never — forever ! " 

From that chamber, clothed in white, 
The bride came forth on her wedding 

night; 
There, in that silent room below, 
The dead lay in his shroud of snow; 
And in the hush that followed the prayer, 
Was heard the old clock on the stair, — 

" Forever — never ! 
Never — forever ! " 



All are scattered now and fled, 
Some are married, some are dead; 
And when I ask, with throbs of pain, 
" Ah ! when shall they all meet again ? n 
As in the days long since gone by, 
The ancient timepiece makes reply,— 
" Forever — never ! 
Never — forever ! " 

Never here, forever there, 
Where all parting, pain, and care, 
And death, and time shall disappear,— 
Forever there, but never here ! 
The horologe of Eternity 
Sayeth this incessantly, — 
" Forever — never ! 
Never — forever ! " 



THE ARROW AND THE SONG 

I shot an arrow into the air, 
It fell to earth, I knew not where; 
For, so swiftly it flew, the sight 
Could not follow it in its flight. 

I breathed a song into the air, 
It fell to earth, I knew not where; 
For who has sight so keen and strong, 
That it can follow the flight of song ? 

Long, long afterward, in an oak 
I found the arrow, still unbroke; 
And the song, from beginning to end, 
I found again in the heart of a friend. 



SONNETS 

MEZZO CAMMIN 

Half of my life is gone, and I have let 
The years slip from me and have not 

fulfilled 
The aspiration of my youth, to build 
Some tower of song with lofty parapet. 
Not indolence, nor pleasure, nor the fret 
Of restless passions that would not be 

stilled, 
But sorrow, and a care that almost killed, 
Kept me from what I may accomplish 

yet; 



CURFEW 



69 



Though, half-way up the hill, I see the Past 


Thy shield is the red harvest moon, sus- 


Lying beneath me with its sounds and 


pended 


sights, — 


So long beneath the heaven's o'erhanging 


A city in the twilight dim and vast, 


eaves; 


With smoking roofs, soft bells, and gleam- 


Thy steps are by the farmer's prayers 


ing lights, — 


attended; 


And hear above me on the autumnal 


Like flames upon an altar shine the sheaves; 


blast 


And, following thee, in thy ovation 


The cataract of Death far thundering 


splendid, 


from the heights. 


Thine almoner, the wind, scatters the 




golden leaves ! 


THE EVENING STAR 


DANTE 


Lo ! in the painted oriel of the West, 


Tuscan, that wanderest through the realms 


Whose panes the sunken sun incarna- 


of gloom, 


dines, 


With thoughtful pace, and sad, majestic 


Like a fair lady at her casement, shines 


eyes, 


The evening star, the star of love and 


Stern thoughts and awful from thy soul 


rest ! 


arise, 


And then anon she doth herself divest 


Like Farinata from his fiery tomb. 


Of all her radiant garments, and reclines 


Thy sacred song is like the trump of doom,. 


Behind the sombre screen of yonder 


Yet in thy heart what human sympa- 


pines, 


thies, 


With slumber and soft dreams of love 


What soft compassion glows, as in the 


oppressed. 


skies 


my beloved, my sweet Hesperus ! 


The tender stars their clouded lamps re- 


My morning and my evening star of 


lume ! 


love ! 


Methinks I see thee stand with pallid 


My best and gentlest lady ! even thus, 


cheeks 


A.s that fair planet in the sky above, 


By Fra Hilario in his diocese, 


Dost thou retire unto thy rest at night, 


As up the convent-walls, in golden 


And from thy darkened window fades 


streaks, 


the light. 


The ascending sunbeams mark the day '3 




decrease; 




And, as he asks what there the stranger 




seeks, 


AUTUMN 


Thy voice along the cloister whisper* 




" Peace ! " 


Thou comest, Autumn, heralded by the 
rain, 




With banners, by great gales incessant 




fanned, 




Brighter than brightest silks of Samar- 


CURFEW 


cand, 




And stately oxen harnessed to thy wain! 


1 


Thou standest, like imperial Charlemagne, 


Solemnly, mournfully, 


Upon thy bridge of gold; thy royal 


Dealing its dole, 


hand 


The Curfew Bell 


Outstretched with benedictions o'er the 


Is beginning to toll. 


land, 




Blessing the farms through all thy vast 


Cover the embers, 


domain ! 


And put out the light; 



?o 



CURFEW 



Toil comes with the morning, 
And rest with the night. 

Dark grow the windows, 
And quenched is the fire ; 

Sound fades into silence, — 
All footsteps retire. 

No voice in the chambers, 
No sound in the hall ! 

Sleep and oblivion 
Reign over all J 



The book is completed, 
And closed, like the day ; 



And the hand that has written it 
Lays it away. 

Dim grow its fancies ; 

Forgotten they lie ; 
Like coals in the ashes, 

They darken and die. 

Song sinks into silence, 

The story is told, 
The windows are darkened t 

The hearth-stone is cold. 

Darker and darker 

The black shadows fall ; 

Sleep and oblivion 
Reign over all. 



EVANGELINE 



A TALE OF ACADIE 



In Hawthorne's A merican Note-Books is the following 
passage : — 

" H. L. C. heard from a French Canadian a story of 
a young couple in Acadie. On their marriage-day all 
the men of the Province were summoned to assemble 
in the church to hear a proclamation. When assem- 
bled, they were all seized and shipped off to be distrib- 
uted through New England, — among them the new 
bridegroom. His bride set off in search of him — wan- 
dered about New England all her life-time, and at last, 
when she was old, she found her bridegroom on his 
death-bed. The shock was so great that it killed her 
likewise." 

This is the story as set down by the romancer, which 
his friend, Rev. H. L. Conolly,had heard from a parish- 
ioner. Mr. Conolly saw in it a fine theme for a ro- 
mance, but for some reason Hawthorne was disinclined 
to undertake it. One day the two were dining with Mr. 
Longfellow, and Mr. Conolly told the story again and 
wondered that Hawthorne did not care for it. " If 
you really do not want this incident for a tale," said 
Mr. Longfellow to his friend, " let me have it for a 
poem." Just when the conversation took place we can- 
not say, but the poem was begun apparently soon after 
the completion of the volume, The Belfry of Bruges 
and other Poems, and published October 30, 1847. 
Hawthorne, who had taken a lively interest in the poem, 
wrote a few days after, to say that he had read it 
" with more pleasure than it would be decorous to 
express." Mr. Longfellow, in replying, thanked him 
for a friendly notice which he had written for a Salem 
paper, and added : " Still more do I thank you for re- 
signing to me that legend of Acady. This success I owe 
entirely to you, for being willing to forego the pleasure 
of writing a prose tale which many people would have 
taken for poetry, that I might write a poem which 
many people take for prose." 

In preparing for his poem Mr. Longfellow drew upon 



the nearest, most accessible materials, which at that 
time were to be found in Haliburton's An Historical 
and Statistical Account of Nova Scotia, with its liberal 
quotations from the Abbe Raynal's emotional account 
of the French settlers. He may have examined Wins- 
low's narrative of the expedition under his command, 
in the cabinet of the Massachusetts Historical Society, 
not then printed but since that time made easily acces- 
sible. He did not visit Grand-Pre" nor the Mississippi, 
but trusted to descriptions and Banvard's diorama. At 
the time of the publication of Evangeline the actual his- 
tory of the deportation of the Acadians had scarcely 
been investigated. It is not too much to say that this 
tale was itself the cause of the frequent studies since 
made, studies which have resulted in a revision of the 
accepted rendering of the facts. 

Mr. Longfellow gave to a Philadelphia journalist a 
reminiscence of his first notice of the material which 
was used in the conclusion of the poem : "I was pass- 
ing down Spruce Street one day toward my hotel, after 
a walk, when my attention was attracted to a large 
building with beautiful trees about it, inside of a high 
enclosure. 1 I walked along until I came to the great 
gate, and then stepped inside, and looked carefully 
over the place. The charming picture of lawn, flower- 
beds, and shade which it presented made an impression 
which has never left me, and when I came to write 
Evangeline I placed the final scene, the meeting be- 
tween Evangeline and Gabriel, and the death, at the 
poor-house, and the burial in an old Catholic grave- 
yard not far away, which I found by chance in another 
of my walks." 

The publication of Evangeline doubtless marks the 
period of Mr. Longfellow's greatest accession of fame, 
as it probably is the poem which the majority of read- 
ers would first name if called upon to indicate the 
poet's most commanding work. It was finished upon 
his fortieth birthday. 



EVANGELINE 

This is the forest primeval. The murmuring 

pines and the hemlocks, 
Bearded with moss, and in garments green, 

indistinct in the twilight, 
Stand like Druids of eld, with voices sad 

and prophetic, 
Stand like harpers hoar, with beards that 

rest on their bosoms. 



Loud from its rocky caverns, the deep- 
voiced neighboring ocean 

Speaks, and in accents disconsolate answers 
the wail of the forest. 

This is the forest primeval ; but where 
are the hearts that beneath it 
Leaped like the roe, when he hears in the 
woodland the voice of the hunts- 
man ? 



1 The Pennsylvania Hospital. 



72 



EVANGELINE 



Where is the thatch-roofed village, the 
home of Acadian farmers, — 

Men whose lives glided on like rivers that 
water the woodlands, 

Darkened by shadows of earth, but reflect- 
ing an image of heaven ? 

Waste are those pleasant farms, and the 
farmers forever departed ! 

Scattered like dust and leaves, when the 
mighty blasts of October 

Seize them, and whirl them aloft, and 
sprinkle them far o'er the ocean. 

Naught but tradition remains of the beau- 
tiful village of Grand-Prd. 

Ye who believe in affection that hopes, 

and endures, and is patient, 
Ye who believe in the beauty and strength 

of woman's devotion, 
List to the mournful tradition, still sung by 

the pines of the forest ; 
List to a Tale of Love in Acadie, home of 

the happy. 



PART THE FIRST 



In the Acadian land, on the shores of the 

Basin of Minas, 
Distant, secluded, still, the little village of 

Grand-Pre' 
Lay in the fruitful valley. Vast meadows 

stretched to the eastward, 
Giving the village its name, and pasture 

to flocks without number. 
Dikes, that the hands of the farmers had 

raised with labor incessant, 
Shut out the turbulent tides ; but at stated 

seasons the flood-gates 
Opened, and welcomed the sea to wander 

at will o'er the meadows. 
West and south there were fields of flax, 

and orchards and cornfields 
Spreading afar and unfenced o'er the plain ; 

and away to the northward 
Blomidon rose, and the forests old, and 

aloft on the mountains 
Sea-fogs pitched their tents, and mists from 

the mighty Atlantic 
Looked on the happy valley, but ne'er 

from their station descended. 
There, in the midst of its farms, reposed 

the Acadian village. 



Strongly built were the houses, with frames 

of oak and of hemlock, 
Such as the peasants of Normandy built in 

the reign of the Henries. 
Thatched were the roofs, with dormer-win- 
dows ; and gables projecting 
Over the basement below protected and 

shaded the doorway. 
There in the tranquil evenings of summer, 

when brightly the sunset 
Lighted the village street, and gilded the 

vanes on the chimneys, 
Matrons and maidens sat in snow-white 

caps and in kirtles 
Scarlet and blue and green, with distaffs 

spinning the golden 
Flax for the gossiping looms, whose noisy 

shuttles within doors 
Mingled their sounds with the whir of the 

wheels and the songs of the maidens. 
Solemnly down the street came the parish 

priest, and the children 
Paused in their play to kiss the hand he 

extended to bless them. 
Reverend walked he among them ; and up 

rose matrons and maidens, 
Hailing his slow approach with words of 

affectionate welcome. 
Then came the laborers home from the 

field, and serenely the sun sank 
Down to his rest, and twilight prevailed. 

Anon from the belfry 
Softly the Angelus sounded, and over the 

roofs of the village 
Columns of pale blue smoke, like clouds of 

incense ascending, 
Rose from a hundred hearths, the homes 

of peace and contentment. 
Thus dwelt together in love these simplti 

Acadian farmers, — 
Dwelt in the love of God and of man. 

Alike were they free from 
Fear, that reigns with the tyrant, and envy, 

the vice of republics. 
Neither locks had they to their doors, nor 

bars to their windows ; 
But their dwellings were open as day and 

the hearts of the owners ; 
There the richest was poor, and the poorest 

lived in abundance. 

Somewhat apart from the village, and 
nearer the Basin of Minas, 
Benedict Bellefontaine, the wealthiest 
farmer of Grand-Pre\ 



EVANGELINE 



73 



Dwelt on his goodly acres ; and with him, 

directing his household, 
Gentle Evangeline lived, his child, and the 

pride of the village. 
Stalworth and stately in form was the man 

of seventy winters ; 
Hearty and hale was he, an oak that is 

covered with snow-flakes ; 
White as the snow were his locks, and his 

cheeks as brown as the oak-leaves. 
Fair was she to behold, that maiden of 

seventeen summers. 
Black were her eyes as the berry that 

grows on the thorn by the wayside, 
Black, yet how softly they gleamed be- 
neath the brown shade of her tresses ! 
Sweet was her breath as the breath of kine 

that feed in the meadows. 
When in the harvest heat she bore to the 

reapers at noontide 
Flagons of home-brewed ale, ah ! fair in 

sooth was the maiden. 
Fairer was she when, on Sunday morn, 

while the bell from its turret 
Sprinkled with holy sounds the air, as the 

priest with his hyssop 
Sprinkles the congregation, and scatters 

blessings upon them, 
Down the long street she passed, with her 

chaplet of beads and her missal, 
Wearing her Norman cap, and her kirtle 

of blue, and the ear-rings, 
Brought in the olden time from France, 

and since, as an heirloom, 
Handed down from mother to child, 

through long generations. 
But a celestial brightness — a more ethe- 
real beauty — 
Shone on her face and encircled her form, 

when, after confession, 
Homeward serenely she walked with God's 

benediction upon her. 
When she had passed, it seemed like the 

ceasing of exquisite music. 

Firmly builded with rafters of oak, the 
house of the farmer 

Stood on the side of a hill commanding the 
sea ; and a shady 

Sycamore grew by the door, with a wood- 
bine wreathing around it. 

Rudely carved was the porch, with seats 
beneath ; and a footpath 

Led through an orchard wide, and disap- 
peared in the meadow. 



Under the sycamore-tree were hives over- 
hung by a penthouse, 

Such as the traveller sees in regions remote 
by the roadside, 

Built o'er a box for the poor, or the blessed 
image of Mary. 

Farther down, on the slope of the hill, was 
the well with its moss-grown 

Bucket, fastened with iron, and near it a 
trough for the horses. 

Shielding the house from storms, on' the 
north, were the barns and the farm- 
yard. 

There stood the broad-wheeled wains and 
the antique ploughs and the har- 
rows ; 

There were the folds for the sheep ; and 
there, in his feathered seraglio, 

Strutted the lordly turkey, and crowed the 
cock, with the selfsame 

Voice that in ages of old had startled the 
penitent Peter. 

Bursting with hay were the barns, them- 
selves a village. In each one 

Far o'er the gable projected a roof of 
thatch ; and a staircase, 

Under the sheltering eaves, led up to the 
odorous corn-loft. 

There too the dove-cot stood, with its meek 
and innocent inmates 

Murmuring ever of love ; while above in 
the variant breezes 

Numberless noisy weathercocks rattled and 
sang of mutation. 

Thus, at peace with God and the world, 

the farmer of Grand-Prd 
Lived on his sunny farm, and Evangeline 

governed his household. 
Many a youth, as he knelt in church and 

opened his missal, 
Fixed his eyes upon her as the saint of his 

deepest devotion ; 
Happy was he who might touch her hand 

or the hem of her garment ! 
Many a suitor came to her door, by the 

darkness befriended, 
And, as he knocked and waited to hear the 

sound of her footsteps, 
Knew not which beat the louder, his heart 

or the knocker of iron ; 
Or at the joyous feast of the Patron Saint 

of the village, 
Bolder grew, and pressed her hand in the 

dance as he whispered 



74 



EVANGELINE 



Hurried words of love, that seemed a part 

of the music. 
But, among all who came, young Gabriel 

only was welcome ; 
Gabriel Lajeunesse, the son of Basil the 

blacksmith, 
Who was a mighty man in the village, and 

honored of all men ; 
For, since the birth of time, throughout all 

ages and nations, 
Has the craft of the smith been held in 

repute by the people. 
Basil was Benedict's friend. Their children 

from earliest childhood 
Grew up together as brother and sister ; 

and Father Felician, 
Priest and pedagogue both in the village, 

had taught them their letters 
Out of the selfsame book, with the hymns 

of the church and the plain-song. 
But when the hymn was sung, and the 

daily lesson completed, 
Swiftly they hurried away to the forge of 

Basil the blacksmith. 
There at the door they stood, with wonder- 
ing eyes to behold him 
Take in his leathern lap the hoof of the 

horse as a plaything, 
Nailing the shoe in its place ; while near 

him the tire of the cart-wheel 
Lay like a fiery snake, coiled round in a 

circle of cinders. 
Oft on autumnal eves, when without in the 

gathering darkness 
Bursting with light seemed the smithy, 

through every cranny and crevice, 
Warm by the forge within they watched 

the laboring bellows, 
And as its panting ceased, and the sparks 

expired in the ashes, 
Merrily laughed, and said they were nuns 

going into the chapel. 
Oft on sledges in winter, as swift as the 

swoop of the eagle, 
Down the hillside bounding, they glided 

away o'er the meadow. 
Oft in the barns they climbed to the popu- 
lous nests on the rafters, 
Seeking with eager eyes that wondrous 

stone, which the swallow 
Brings from the shore of the sea to restore 

the sight of its fledglings ; 
Lucky was he who found that stone in the 

nest of the swallow ! 



Thus passed a few swift years, and they no 

longer were children. 
He was a valiant youth, and his face, like 

the face of the morning, 
Gladdened the earth with its light, and 

ripened thought into action. 
She was a woman now, with the heart and 

hopes of a woman. 
" Sunshine of Saint Eulalie " was she 

called ; for that was the sunshine 
Which, as the farmers believed, would load 

their orchards with apples ; 
She, too, would bring to her husband's 

house delight and abundance, 
Filling it with love and the ruddy faces of 

children. 



Now had the season returned, when the 

nights grow colder and longer, 
And the retreating sun the sign of the 

Scorpion enters. 
Birds of passage sailed through the leaden 

air, from the ice-bound, 
Desolate northern bays to the shores of 

tropical islands. 
Harvests were gathered in ; and wild with 

the winds of September 
Wrestled the trees of the forest, as Jacob 

of old with the angel. 
All the signs foretold a winter long and 

inclement. 
Bees, with prophetic instinct of want, had 

hoarded their honey 
Till the hives overflowed ; and the Indian 

hunters asserted 
Cold would the winter be, for thick was the 

fur of the foxes. 
Such was the advent of autumn. Then 

followed that beautiful season, 
Called by the pious Acadian peasants the 

Summer of All-Saints ! 
Filled was the air with a dreamy and magi- 
cal light ; and the landscape 
Lay as if new-created in all the freshness 

of childhood. 
Peace seemed to reign upon earth, and the 

restless heart of the ocean 
Was for a moment consoled. All sounds 

were in harmony blended. 
Voices of children at play, the crowing of 

cocks in the farm-yards, 



EVANGELINE 



75 



Whir of wings in the drowsy air, and the 

cooing of pigeons, 
All were subdued and low as the murmurs 

of love, and the great sun 
Looked with the eye of love through the 

golden vapors around him ; 
While arrayed in its robes of russet and 

scarlet and yellow, 
Bright with the sheen of the dew, each 

glittering tree of the forest 
Flashed like the plane-tree the Persian 

adorned with mantles and jewels. 

Now recommenced the reign of rest and 

affection and stillness. 
Day with its burden and heat had departed, 

and twilight descending 
Brought back the evening star to the 

sky, and the herds to the home- 
stead. 
Pawing the ground they came, and resting 

their necks on each other, 
And with their nostrils distended inhaling 

the freshness of evening. 
Foremost, bearing the bell, Evangeline's 

beautiful heifer, 
Proud of her snow-white hide, and the 

ribbon that waved from her col- 
lar, 
Quietly paced and slow, as if conscious of 

human affection. 
Then came the shepherd back with his 

bleating flocks from the seaside, 
Where was their favorite pasture. Behind 

them followed the watch-dog, 
Patient, full of importance, and grand in 

the pride of his instinct, 
Walking from side to side with a lordly air, 

and superbly 
Waving his bushy tail, and urging forward 

the stragglers ; 
Regent of flocks was he when the shepherd 

slept ; their protector, 
When from the forest at night, through 

the starry silence the wolves howled. 
Late, with the rising moon, returned the 

wains from the marshes, 
Laden with briny hay, that filled the air 

with its odor. 
Cheerily neighed the steeds, with dew on 

their manes and their fetlocks, 
While aloft on their shoulders the wooden 

and ponderous saddles, 
Painted with brilliant dyes, and adorned 

with tassels of crimson, 



Nodded in bright array, like hollyhocks 
heavy with blossoms. 

Patiently stood the cows meanwhile, and 
yielded their udders 

Unto the milkmaid's hand ; whilst loud and 
in regular cadence 

Into the sounding pails the foaming stream- 
lets descended. 

Lowing of cattle and peals of laughter 
were heard in the farm-yard, 

Echoed back by the barns. Anon thej 
sank into stillness ; 

Heavily closed, with a jarring sound, the 
valves of the barn-doors, 

Rattled the wooden bars, and all for a sea- 
son was silent. 

In - doors, warm by the wide - mouthed 

fireplace, idly the farmer 
Sat in his elbow-chair and watched how the 

flames and the smoke- wreaths 
Struggled together like foes in a burning 

city. Behind him, 
Nodding and mocking along the wall, with 

gestures fantastic, 
Darted his own huge shadow, and vanished 

away into darkness. 
Faces, clumsily carved in oak, on the back 

of his arm-chair 
Laughed in the flickering light ; and the 

pewter plates on the dresser 
Caught and reflected the flame, as shields 

of armies the sunshine. 
Fragments of song the old man sang, and 

carols of Christmas, 
Such as at home, in the olden time, his 

fathers before him 
Sang in their Norman orchards and bright 

Burgundian vineyards. 
Close at her father's side was the gentle 

Evangeline seated, 
Spinning flax for the loom, that stood in 

the corner behind her. 
Silent awhile were its treadles, at rest was 

its diligent shuttle, 
While the monotonous drone of the wheel, 

like the. drone of a bagpipe, 
Followed the old man's song and united the 

fragments together. 
As in a church, when the chant of the choir 

at intervals ceases, 
Footfalls are heard in the aisles, or words 

of the priest at the altar, 
So, in each pause of the song, with meas« 

ured motion the clock clicked. 



76 



EVANGELINE 



Thus as they sat, there were footsteps 

heard, and, suddenly lifted, 
Sounded the wooden latch, and the door 

swung back on its hinges. 
Benedict knew by the hob-nailed shoes it 

was Basil the blacksmith, 
And by her beating heart Evangeline knew 

who was with him. 
" Welcome ! " the farmer exclaimed, as 

their footsteps paused on the thresh- 
old, 
A Welcome, Basil, my friend ! Come, 

take thy place on the settle 
Close by the chimney-side, which is always 

empty without thee ; 
Take from the shelf overhead thy pipe 

and the box of tobacco ; 
Never so much thyself art thou as when 

through the curling 
Smoke of the pipe or the forge thy friendly 

and jovial face gleams 
Round and red as the harvest moon through 

the mist of the marshes." 
Then, with a smile of content, thus an- 
swered Basil the blacksmith, 
Taking with easy air the accustomed seat 

by the fireside : — 
"Benedict Bellefontaine, thou hast ever 

thy jest and thy ballad ! 
Ever in cheerfullest mood art thou, when 

others are filled with 
Gloomy forebodings of ill, and see only ruin 

before them. 
Happy art thou, as if every day thou hadst 

picked up a horseshoe." 
Pausing a moment, to take the pipe that 

Evangeline brought him, 
And with a coal from the embers had 

lighted, he slowly continued : — 
" Four days now are passed since the Eng- 
lish ships at their anchors 
Ride in the Gaspereau's mouth, with their 

cannon pointed against us. 
What their design may be is unknown ; but 

all are commanded 
On the morrow to meet in the church, 

where his Majesty's mandate 
Will be proclaimed as law in the land. 

Alas ! in the mean time 
Many surmises of evil alarm the hearts of 

the people." 
Then made answer the farmer : " Perhaps 

some friendlier purpose 
Brings these ships to our shores. Perhaps 

the harvests in England 



By untimely rains or un timelier heat have 

been blighted, 
And from our bursting barns they would 

feed their cattle and children." 
" Not so thinketh the folk in the village," 

said, warmly, the blacksmith, 
Shaking his head, as in doubt ; then, heav- 
ing a sigh, he continued : — 
" Louisburg is not forgotten, nor Beau 

Se'jour, nor Port Royal. 
Many already have fled to the forest, and 

lurk on its outskirts, 
Waiting with anxious hearts the dubious 

fate of to-morrow. 
Arms have been taken from us, and war- 
like weapons of all kinds ; 
Nothing is left but the blacksmith's sledge 

and the scythe of the mower." 
Then with a pleasant smile made answer 

the jovial farmer : — 
" Safer are we unarmed, in the midst of our 

flocks and our cornfields, 
Safer within these peaceful dikes, besieged 

by the ocean, 
Than our fathers in forts, besieged by the 

enemy's cannon. 
Fear no evil, my friend, and to-night may 

no shadow of sorrow 
Fall on this house and hearth ; for this is 

the night of the contract. 
Built are the house and the barn. The 

merry lads of the village 
Strongly have built them and well ; and, 

breaking the glebe round about 

them, 
Filled the barn with hay, and the house 

with food for a twelvemonth. 
Rene* Leblanc will be here anon, with his 

papers and inkhorn. 
Shall we not then be glad, and rejoice in 

the joy of our children ? " 
As apart by the window she stood, with 

her hand in her lover's, 
Blushing Evangeline heard the words that 

her father had spoken, 
And, as fchey died on his lips, the worthy 

notary entered. 



Ill 



Bent like a laboring oar, that toils in the 

surf of the ocean, 
Bent, but not broken, by age was the form 

of the notary public ; 



EVANGELINE 



r; 



shocks of yellow hair, like the silken floss 

of the maize, hung 
Over his shoulders ; his forehead was high ; 

and glasses with horn bows 
Sat astride on his nose, with a look of 

wisdom supernal. 
Father of twenty children was he, and 

more than a hundred 
Children's children rode on his knee, and 

heard his great watch tick. 
Four long years in the times of the war 

had he languished a captive, 
Suffering much in an old French fort as 

the friend of the English. 
Now, though warier grown, without all 

guile or suspicion, 
Ripe in wisdom was he, but patient, and 

simple, and childlike. 
He was beloved by all, and most of all by 

the children ; 
For he told them tales of the Loup-garou 

in the forest, 
And of the goblin that came in the night 

to water the horses, 
And of the white Le'tiche, the ghost of a 

child who unchristened 
Died, and was doomed to haunt unseen the 

chambers of children ; 
And how on Christmas eve the oxen talked 

in the stable, 
And how the fever was cured by a spider 

shut up in a nutshell, 
And of the marvellous powers of four- 
leaved clover and horseshoes, 
With whatsoever else was writ in the lore 

of the village. 
Then up rose from his seat by the fireside 

Basil the blacksmith, 
Knocked from his pipe the ashes, and 

slowly extending his right hand, 
" Father Leblanc," he exclaimed, " thou 

hast heard the talk in the village, 
And, perchance, canst tell us some news 

of these ships and their errand." 
Then with modest demeanor made answer 

the notary public, — 
M Gossip enough have I heard, in sooth, yet 

am never the wiser ; 
And what their errand may be I know not 

better than others. 
Yet am I not of those who imagine some 

evil intention 
Brings them here, for we are at peace ; 

and why then molest us ? " 



" God's name ! " shouted the hasty and 

somewhat irascible blacksmith ; 
" Must we in all things look for the how, 

and the why, and the wherefore ? 
Daily injustice is done, and might is the 

right of the strongest ! " 
But without heeding his warmth, continued 

the notary public, — 
" Man is unjust, but God is just ; and 

finally justice 
Triumphs ; and well I remember a story, 

that often consoled me, 
When as a captive I lay in the old French 

fort at Port Royal." 
This was the old man's favorite tale, and 

he loved to repeat it 
When his neighbors complained that any 
__ injustice was done them. 

" Once in an ancient city, whose name I no 

longer remember, 
Raised aloft on a column, a brazen statue 

of Justice 
Stood in the public square, upholding the 

scales in its left hand, 
And in its right a sword, as an emblem 

that justice presided 
Over the laws of the land, and the hearts 

and homes of the people. 
Even the birds had built their nests in the 

scales of the balance, 
Having no fear of the sword that flashed 

in the sunshine above them. 
But in the course of time the laws of the 

land were corrupted ; 
Might took the place of right, and the weak 

were oppressed, and the mighty 
Ruled with an iron rod. Then it chanced 

in a nobleman's palace 
That a necklace of pearls was lost, and 

erelong a suspicion 
Fell on an orphan girl who lived as a maid 

in the household. 
She, after form of trial condemned to die 

on the scaffold, 
Patiently met her doom at the foot of the 

statue of Justice. 
As to her Father in heaven her innocent 

spirit ascended, 
Lo ! o'er the city a tempest rose ; and the 

bolts of the thunder 
Smote the statue of bronze, and burled in 

wrath from its left hand 
Down on the pavement below the clattering 

scales of the balance, 



7 8 



EVANGELINE 



And in the hollow thereof was found the 
nest of a magpie, 

Into whose clay-built walls the necklace of 
pearls was inwoven." 

Silenced, but not convinced, when the story 
was ended, the blacksmith 

Stood like a man who fain would speak, 
but findeth no language ; 

All his thoughts were congealed into lines 
on his face, as the vapors 

Freeze in fantastic shapes on the window- 
panes in the winter. 

Then Evangeline lighted the brazen lamp 

on the table, 
Filled, till it overflowed, the pewter tankard 

with home-brewed 
Nut-brown ale, that was famed for its 

strength in the village of Grand- 
pa ; 
While from his pocket the notary drew his 

papers and inkhorn, 
Wrote with a steady hand the date and the 

age of the parties, 
Naming the dower of the bride in flocks of 

sheep and in cattle. 
Orderly all things proceeded, and duly and 

well were completed, 
And the great seal of the law was set like 

a sun on the margin. 
Then from his leathern pouch the farmer 

threw on the table 
Three times the old man's fee in solid 

pieces of silver ; 
And the notary rising, and blessing the 

bride and the bridegroom, 
Lifted aloft the tankard of ale and drank 

to their welfare. 
Wiping the foam from his lip, he solemnly 

bowed and departed, 
While in silence the others sat and mused 

by the fireside, 
Till Evangeline brought the draught-board 

out of its corner. 
Soon was the game begun. In friendly 

contention the old men 
Laughed at each lucky hit, or unsuccessful 

manoeuvre, 
Laughed when a man was crowued, or a 

breach was made in the king-row. 
Meanwhile apart, in the twilight gloom of 

a window's embrasure, 
Sat the lovers, and whispered together, be- 
holding the moon rise 



Over the pallid sea, and the silvery mists 
of the meadows. 

Silently one by one, in the infinite meadows 
of heaven, 

Blossomed the lovely stars, the forget-me- 
nots of the angels. 

Thus was the evening passed. Anon the 

bell from the belfry 
Rang out the hour of nine, the village cur- 
few, and straightway 
Rose the guests and departed ; and silence 

reigned in the household. 
Many a farewell word and sweet good- 
night on the door-step 
Lingered long in Evangeline's heart, ano 

filled it with gladness. 
Carefully then were covered the embeta 

that glowed on the hearth-stone, 
And on the oaken stairs resounded the 

tread of the farmer. 
Soon with a soundless step the foot of 

Evangeline followed. 
Up the staircase moved a luminous space 

in the darkness, 
Lighted less by the lamp than the shining 

face of the maiden. 
Silent she passed the hall, and entered the 

door of her chamber. 
Simple that chamber was, with its curtains 

of white, and its clothes-press 
Ample and high, on whose spacious shelves 

were carefully folded 
Linen and woollen stuffs, by the hand of 

Evangeline woven. 
This was the precious dower she would 

bring to her husband in marriage, 
Better than flocks and herds, being proofs 

of her skill as a housewife. 
Soon she extinguished her lamp, for the 

mellow and radiant moonlight 
Streamed through the windows, and lighted 

the room, till the heart of the 

maiden 
Swelled and obeyed its power, like the 

tremulous tides of the ocean. 
Ah ! she was fair, exceeding fair to behold, 

as she stood with 
Naked snow-white feet en the gleaming 

floor of her chamber ! 
Little she dreamed that below, among the 

trees of the orchard, 
Waited her lover and watched for the 

gleam of her lamp and her shadow. 



EVANGELINE 



79 



5Tet were her thoughts of him, and at times 

a feeling of sadness 
Passed o'er her soul, as the sailing shade of 

clouds in the moonlight 
Flitted across the floor and darkened the 

room for a moment. 
And, as she gazed from the window, she 

saw serenely the moon pass 
Forth from the folds of a cloud, and one 

star follow her footsteps, 
As out of Abraham's tent young Ishmael 

wandered with Hao;ar ! 



IV 



Pleasantly rose next morn the sun on the 

village of Grand-Pie'. 
Pleasantly gleamed in the soft, sweet air 

the Basin of Minas, 
Where the ships, with their wavering shad- 
ows, were riding at anchor. 
Life had long been astir in the village, and 

clamorous labor 
Knocked with its hundred hands at the 

golden gates of the morning. 
Now from the country around, from the 

farms and neighboring hamlets, 
Came in their holiday dresses the blithe 

Acadian peasants. 
Many a glad good-morrow and jocund laugh 

from the young folk 
Made the bright air brighter, as up from 

the numerous meadows, 
Where no path could be seen but the track 

of wheels in the greensward, 
Group after group appeared, and joined, or 

passed on the highway. 
Long ere noon, in the village ail sounds of 

labor were silenced. 
Thronged were the streets with people ; 

and noisy groups at the house-doors 
Sat in the cheerful sun, and rejoiced and 

gossiped together. 
Every house was an inn, where all were 

welcomed and feasted ; 
For with this simple people, who lived like 

brothers together, 
All things were held in common, and what 

one had was another's. 
Yet under Benedict's roof hospitality 

seemed more abundant : 
For Evangeline stood among the guests of 

her father ; 



Bright was her face with smiles, and wordg 

of welcome and gladness 
Fell from her beautiful lips, and blessed 

the cup as she gave it. 

Under the open sky, in the odorous air of 

the orchard, 
Stript of its golden fruit, was spread the 

feast of betrothal. 
There in the shade of the porch were the 

priest and the notary seated ; 
There good Benedict sat, and sturdy Basil 

the blacksmith. 
Not far withdrawn from these, by the cider- 
press and the beehives, 
Michael the fiddler was placed, with the 

gayest of hearts and of waistcoats. 
Shadow and light from the leaves alter- 
nately played on his snow-white 
Hair, as it waved in the wind ; and the 

jolly face of the fiddler 
Glowed like a living coal when the ashes 

are blown from the embers. 
Gayly the old man sang to the vibrant 

sound of his fiddle, 
Tous les Bourgeois de Ckartres, and Le 

Carillon de Dunquerque, 
And anon with his wooden shoes beat time 

to the music. 
Merrily, merrily whirled the wheels of the 

dizzying dances 
Under the orchard-trees and down the path 

to the meadows ; 
Old folk and young together, and children 

mingled among them. 
Fairest of all the maids was Evangeline 

Benedict's daughter ! 
Noblest of all the youths was Gabriel, sop 

of the blacksmith ! 

So passed the morning away. And lo ! 

with a summons sonorous 
Sounded the bell from its tower, and over 

the meadows a drum beat. 
Thronged erelong was the church with 

men. Without, in the churchyard, 
Waited the women. They stood by the 

graves, and hung on the headstones 
Garlands of autumn-leaves and evergreens 

fresh from the forest. 
Then came the guard from the ships, and 

marching proudly among them 
Entered the sacred portal. W T ith loud and 

dissonant clangor 



8o 



EVANGELINE 



Echoed the sound of their brazen drums 

from ceiling and casement, — 
Echoed a moment only, and slowly the 

ponderous portal 
Closed, and in silence the crowd awaited 

the will of the soldiers. 
Then uprose their commander, and spake 

from the steps of the altar, 
Holding aloft in his hands, with its seals, 

the royal commission. 
" You are convened this day," he said, " by 

his Majesty's orders. 
Clement and kind has he been ; but how 

you have answered his kindness, 
Let your own hearts reply ! To my nat- 
ural make and my temper 
Painful the task is I do, which to you I 

know must be grievous. 
Yet must I bow and obey, and deliver the 

will of our monarch ; 
Namely, that all your lauds, and dwellings, 

and cattle of all kinds 
Forfeited be to the crown ; and that you 

yourselves from this province 
Be transported to other lands. God grant 

you may dwell there 
Ever as faithful subjects, a happy and 

peaceable people ! 
Prisoners now I declare you ; for such is 

his Majesty's pleasure ! " 
As, when the air is serene in sultry solstice 

of summer, 
Suddenly gathers a storm, and the deadly 

sling of the hailstones 
Beats down the farmer's corn in the field 

and shatters his windows, 
Hiding the sun, and strewing the ground 

with thatch from the house-roofs, 
Bellowing fly the herds, and seek to break 

their enclosures ; 
So on the hearts of the people descended the 

words of the speaker. 
Silent a moment they stood in speechless 

wonder, and then rose 
Louder and ever louder a wail of sorrow 

and anger, 
And, by one impulse moved, they madly 

rushed to the door-way. 
Vain was the hope of escape ; and cries 

and fierce imprecations 
Rang through the house of prayer ; 
and high o'er the heads of the oth- 
ers 
Rose, with his arms uplifted, the figure of 
Basil the blacksmith, 



As, on a stormy sea, a spar is tossed by the 

billows. 
Flushed was his face and distorted with 

passion ; and wildly he shouted, — 
" Down with the tyrants of England ! we 

never have sworn them allegiance ! 
Death to these foreign soldiers, who seize 

on our homes and our harvests ! " 
More he fain would have said, but the 

merciless hand of a soldier 
Smote him upon the mouth, and dragged 

him down to the pavement. 

In the midst of the strife and tumult of 

angry contention, 
Lo ! the door of the chancel opened, and 

Father Felician 
Entered, with serious mien, and ascended 

the steps of the altar. 
Raising his reverend hand, with a gesture 

he awed into silence 
All that clamorous throng ; and thus he 

spake to his people ; 
Deep were his tones and solemn ; in accents 

measured and mournful 
Spake he, as, after the tocsin's alarum, dis- 
tinctly the clock strikes. 
" What is this that ye do, my children ? 

what madness has seized you ? 
Forty years of my life have I labored 

among you, and taught you, 
Not in word alone, but in deed, to love one 

another ! 
Is this the fruit of my toils, of my vigils 

and prayers and privations ? 
Have you so soon forgotten all lessons of 

love and forgiveness ? 
This is the house of the Prince of Peace, 

and would you profane it 
Thus with violent deeds and hearts over- 
flowing with hatred ? 
Lo ! where the crucified Christ from his 

cross is gazing upon you ! 
See ! in those sorrowful eyes what meek- 
ness and holy compassion ! 
Hark ! how those lips still repeat the 

prayer, ' O Father, forgive them ! ' 
Let us repeat that prayer in the hour when 

the wicked assail us, 
Let us repeat it now, and say, * O Father, 

forgive them ! ' " 
Few were his words of rebuke, but deep in 

the hearts of his people 
Sank they, and sobs of contrition succeeded 

the passionate outbreak. 



EVANGELINE 



81 



While they repeated his prayer, and said, 
" O Father, forgive them ! " 

Then came the evening service. The 

tapers gleamed from the altar. 
Fervent and deep was the voice of the 

priest, and the people responded, 
Not with their lips alone, but their hearts ; 

and the Ave Maria 
Sang they, and fell on their knees, and 

their souls, with devotion translated, 
Rose on the ardor of prayer, like Elijah 

ascending to heaven. 

Meanwhile had spread in the village the 

tidings of ill, and on all sides 
Wandered, wailing, from house to house 

the women and children. 
Long at her father's door Evangeline stood, 

with her right hand 
Shielding her eyes from the level rays of 

the sun, that, descending, 
Lighted the village street with mysterious 

splendor, and roofed each 
Peasant's cottage with golden thatch, and 

emblazoned its windows. 
Long within had been spread the snow- 
white cloth on the table ; 
There stood the wheaten loaf, and the 

honey fragrant with wild-flowers ; 
There stood the tankard of ale, and 

the cheese fresh brought from the 

dairy, 
And, at the head of the board, the great 

arm-chair of the farmer. 
Thus did Evangeline wait at her father's 

door, as the sunset 
Threw the long shadows of trees o'er the 

broad ambrosial meadows. 
Ah ! on her spirit within a deeper shadow 

had fallen, 
And from the fields of her soul a fragrance 

celestial ascended, — 
Charity, meekness, love, and hope, and 

forgiveness, and patience ! 
Then, all-forgetful of self, she wandered 

into the village, 
Cheering with looks and words the mourn- 
ful hearts of the women, 
As o'er the darkening fields with lingering 

steps they departed, 
Urged by their household cares, and the 

weary feet of their children. 
Down sank the great red sun, and in 

golden, glimmering vapors 



Veiled the light of his face, like the 
Prophet descending from Sinai. 

Sweetly over the village the bell of the 
Angelus sounded. 

Meanwhile, amid the gloom, by the 
church Evangeline lingered. 

All was silent within ; and in vain at the 
door and the windows 

Stood she, and listened and looked, till,, 
overcome by emotion, 

" Gabriel ! " cried she aloud with tremulous 
voice ; but no answer 

Came from the graves of the dead, nor the 
gloomier grave of the living. 

Slowly at length she returned to the tenant- 
less house of her father. 

Smouldered the fire on the hearth, on the 
board was the supper untasted, 

Empty and drear was each room, and 
haunted with phantoms of terror. 

Sadly echoed her step on the stair and the 
floor of her chamber. 

In the dead of the night she heard the dis- 
consolate rain fall 

Loud on the withered leaves of the syca- 
more-tree by the window. 

Keenly the lightning flashed ; and the voice 
of the echoing thunder 

Told her that God was in heaven, and gov- 
erned the world he created ! 

Then she remembered the tale she had 
heard of the justice of Heaven ; 

Soothed was her troubled soul, and she 
peacefully slumbered till morning. 



Four times the sun had risen and set ; and 

now on the fifth day 
Cheerily called the cock to the sleeping 

maids of the farm-house. 
Soon o'er the yellow fields, in silent and 

mournful procession, 
Came from the neighboring hamlets and 

farms the Acadian women, 
Driving in ponderous wains their house- 
hold goods to the sea-shore, 
Pausing and looking back to gaze once 

more on their dwellings, 
Ere they were shut from sight by the 

winding road and the woodland. 
Close at their sides their children ran, and 

urged on the oxen, 



82 



EVANGELINE 



While in their little hands they clasped 
some fragments of playthings. 

Thus to the Gaspereau's mouth they hur- 
ried ; and there on the sea-beach 

Piled in confusion lay the household goods 
of the peasants. 

All day long between the shore and the 
ships did the boats ply ; 

All day long the wains came laboring down 
from the village. 

Late in the afternoon, when the sun was 
near to his setting, 

Echoed far o'er the fields came the roll of 
drums from the churchyard. 

Thither the women and children thronged. 
On a sudden the church-doors 

Opened, and forth came the guard, and 
marching in gloomy procession 

Followed the long-imprisoned, but patient, 
Acadian farmers. 

Even as pilgrims, who journey afar from 
their homes and their country, 

Sing as they go, and in singing forget they 
are weary and wayworn, 

So with songs on their lips the Acadian 
peasants descended 

Down from the church to the shore, amid 
their wives and their daughters. 

Foremost the young men came ; and, raising 
together their voices, 

Sang with tremulous lips a chant of the 
Catholic Missions : — 

A Sacred heart of the Saviour ! O inex- 
haustible fountain ! 

Fill our hearts this day with strength and 
submission and patience ! " 

Then the old men, as they marched, and 
the women that stood by the way- 
side 

Joined in the sacred psalm, and the birds 
in the sunshine above them 

Mingled their notes therewith, like voices 
of spirits departed. 

Half-way down to the shore Evangeline 
waited in silence, 

Not overcome with grief, but strong in the 
hour of affliction, — 

Calmly and sadly she waited, until the pro- 
cession approached her, 

And she beheld the face of Gabriel pale 
with emotion. 

Tears then filled her eyes, and, eagerly run- 
ning to meet him, 



Clasped she his hands, and laid her head on 

his shoulder, and whispered, — 
" Gabriel ! be of good cheer ! for if we 

love one another 
Nothing, in truth, can harm us, whatever 

mischances may happen ! " 
Smiling she spake these words ; then sud- 
denly paused, for her father 
Saw she slowly advancing. Alas ! how 

changed was his aspect ! 
Gone was the glow from his cheek, and the 

fire from his eye, and his footstep 
Heavier seemed with the weight of the 

heavy heart in his bosom. 
But with a smile and a sigh, she clasped 

his neck and embraced him, 
Speaking words of endearment where words 

of comfort availed not. 
Thus to the Gaspereau's mouth moved on 

that mournful procession. 

There disorder prevailed, and the tumult 

and stir of embarking. 
Busily plied the freighted boats ; and in 

the confusion 
Wives were torn from their husbands, and 

mothers, too late, saw their children 
Left on the laud, extending their arms, with 

wildest entreaties. 
So unto separate ships were Basil and 

Gabriel carried, 
While in despair on the shore Evangeline 

stood with her father. 
Half the task was not done when the sun 

went down, and the twilight 
Deepened and darkened around ; and in 

haste the refluent ocean 
Fled away from the shore, and left the line 

of the sand-beach 
Covered with waifs of the tide, with kelp 

and the slippery sea- weed. 
Farther back in the midst of the household 

goods and the wagons, 
Like to a gypsy camp, or a leaguer after a 

battle, 
All escape cut off by the sea, and the senti- 
nels near them, 
Lay encamped for the night the houseless 

Acadian farmers. 
Back to its nethermost caves retreated the 

bellowing ocean, 
Dragging adown the beach the rattling 

pebbles, and leaving 
Inland and far up the shore the stranded 

boats of the sailors. 



EVANGELINE 



83 



Then, as the night descended, the herds 
returned from their pastures ; 

Sweet was the moist still air with the odor 
of milk from their udders ; 

Lowing they waited, and long, at the well- 
known bars of the farm-yard, — 

Waited and looked in vain for the voice 
and the hand of the milk-maid. 

Silence reigned in the streets ; from the 
church no Angelus sounded, 

Rose no smoke from the roofs, and gleamed 
no lights from the windows. 

But on the shores meanwhile the even- 
ing fires had been kindled, 
Built of the drift-wood thrown on the sands 

from wrecks in the tempest. 
Round them shapes of gloom and sorrowful 

faces were gathered, 
Voices of women were heard, and of men, 

and the crying of children. 
Onward from fire to fire, as from hearth to 

hearth in his parish, 
Wandered the faithful priest, consoling 

and blessing and cheering, 
Like unto shipwrecked Paul on Melita's 

desolate sea-shore. 
Thus he approached the place where Evan- 
geline sat with her father, 
And in the flickering light beheld the face 

of the old man, 
Haggard and hollow and wan, and without 

either thought or emotion, 
E'en as the face of a clock from which the 

hands have been taken. 
Vainly Evangeline strove with words and 

caresses to cheer him, 
Vainly offered him food ; yet he moved 

not, he looked not, he spake not, 
But, with a vacant stare, ever gazed at the 

flickering fire-light. 
" Benedicite I " murmured the priest, in 

tones of compassion. 
More he fain would have said, but his heart 

was full, and his accents 
Faltered and paused on his lips, as the 

feet of a child on a threshold, 
Hushed by the scene he beholds, and the 

awful presence of sorrow. 
Silently, therefore, he laid his hand on the 

head of the maiden, 
Raising his tearful eyes to the silent stars 

that above them 
Moved on their way, unperturbed by the 

wrongs and sorrows of mortals. 



Then sat he down at her side, and they 
wept together in silence. 

Suddenly rose from the .south a light, as 

in autumn the blood-red 
Moon climbs the crystal walls of heavea, 

and o'er the horizon 
Titan-like stretches its hundred hands upoJ 

the mountain and meadow, 
Seizing the rocks and the rivers and piling 

huge shadows together. 
Broader and ever broader it gleamed on 

the roofs of the village, 
Gleamed on the sky and sea, and the ship? 

that lay in the roadstead. 
Columns of shining smoke uprose, and 

flashes of flame were 
Thrust through their folds and withdrawn, 

like the quivering hands of a martyr. 
Then as the wind seized the gleeds and the 

burning thatch, and, uplifting, 
Whirled them aloft through the air, at 

once from a hundred house-tops 
Started the sheeted smoke with flashes of 

flame intermingled. 

These things beheld in dismay the crowd 

on the shore and on shipboard. 
Speechless at first they stood, then cried 

aloud in their anguish, 
" We shall behold no more our homes in 

the village of Grand-Pre ! " 
Loud on a sudden the cocks began to crow 

in the farm-yards, 
Thinking the day had dawned ; and anon 

the lowing of cattle 
Came on the evening breeze, by the bark* 

ing of dogs interrupted. 
Then rose a sound of dread, such as startle*' 

the sleeping encampments 
Far in the western prairies or forests thai 

skirt the Nebraska, 
When the wild horses affrighted sweep by 

with the speed of the whirlwind, 
Or the loud bellowing herds of buffaloes 

rush to the river. 
Such was the sound that arose on the night, 

as the herds and the horses 
Broke through their folds and fences, and 

madly rushed o'er the meadows. 

Overwhelmed with the sight, yet speech- 
less, the priest and the maiden 
Gazed on the scene of terror that reddened 
and widened before them ; 



84 



EVANGELINE 



And as they turned at length to speak 
to their silent companion, 

Lo ! from his seat he had fallen, and 
stretched abroad on the sea-shore 

Motionless lay his form, from which the 
soul had departed. 

Slowly the priest uplifted the lifeless head, 
and the maiden 

Knelt at her father's side, and wailed aloud 
in her terror. 

Then in a swoon she sank, and lay with her 
head on his bosom. 

Through the long night she lay in deep, ob- 
livious slumber ; 

And when she awoke from the trance, she 
beheld a multitude near her. 

Faces of friends she beheld, that were 
mournfully gazing upon her, 

Pallid, with tearful eyes, and looks of sad- 
dest compassion. 

Still the blaze of the burning village illu- 
mined the landscape, 

Reddened the sky overhead, and gleamed 
on the faces around her, 

And like the day of doom it seemed to her 
wavering senses. 

Then a familiar voice she heard, as it said 
to the people, — 

" Let us bury him here by the sea. When 
a happier season 

Brings us again to our homes from the un- 
known land of our exile, 

Then shall his sacred dust be piously laid 
in the churchyard." 

Such were the words of the priest. And 
there in haste by the sea-side, 

Having the glare of the burning village 
for funeral torches, 

But without bell or book, they buried the 
farmer of Grand-Pre. 

And as the voice of the priest repeated the 
service of sorrow, 

Lo ! with a mournful sound, like the voice 
of a vast congregation, 

Solemnly answered the sea, and mingled its 
roar with the dirges. 

'T was the returning tide, that afar from 
the waste of the ocean, 

With the first dawn of the day, came heav- 
ing and hurrying landward. 

Then recommenced once more the stir and 
noise of embarking ; 

And with the ebb of the tide the ships 

sailed out of the harbor, 
Leaving behind them the dead on the shore, 
and the village in ruins. 



PART THE SECOND 

I 

Many a weary year had passed since the 

burning of Grand-Pre*, 
When on the falling tide the freighted ves- 
sels departed, 
Bearing a nation, with all its household 

gods, into exile, 
Exile without an end, and without an ex- 
ample in story. 
Far asunder, on separate coasts, the Aca- 

dians landed ; 
Scattered were they, like flakes of snow. 

when the wind from the north- 
east 
Strikes aslant through the fogs that darken 

the Banks of Newfoundland. 
Friendless, homeless, hopeless, they wan- 
dered from city to city, 
From the cold lakes of the North to sultrj 

Southern savannas, — 
From the bleak shores of the sea to the 

lands where the Father of Waters 
Seizes the hills in his hands, and drags thens 

down to the ocean, 
Deep in their sands to bury the scattered 

bones of the mammoth. 
Friends they sought and homes ; and many, 

despairing, heart-broken, 
Asked of the earth but a grave, and no 

longer a friend nor a fireside. 
Written their history stands on tablets of 

stone in the churchyards. 
Long among them was seen a maiden who 

waited and wandered, 
Lowly and meek in spirit, and patiently 

suffering all things. 
Fair was she and young : but, alas ! before 

her extended, 
Dreary and vast and silent, the desert of 

life, with its pathway 
Marked by the graves of those who had 

sorrowed and suffered before her, 
Passions long extinguished, and hopes long 

dead and abandoned, 
As the emigrant's way o'er the Western 

desert is marked by 
Camp-fires long consumed, and bones that 

bleach in the sunshine. 
Something there was in her life incomplete, 

imperfect, unfinished ; 
As if a morning of June, with all its music 

and sunshine, 



EVANGELINE 



85 



Suddenly paused in the sky, and, fading, 

slowly descended 
Into the east again, from whence it late 

had arisen. 
Sometimes she lingered in towns, till, 

urged by the fever within her, 
Urged by a restless longing, the hunger 

and thirst of the spirit, 
She would commence again her endless 

search and endeavor ; 
Sometimes in churchyards strayed, and 

gazed on the crosses and tomb- 
stones, 
Sat by some nameless grave, and thought 

that perhaps in its bosom 
He was already at rest, and she longed to 

slumber beside him. 
Sometimes a rumor, a hearsay, an inartic- 
ulate whisper, 
Came with its airy hand to point and 

beckon her forward. 
Sometimes she spake with those who had 

seen her beloved and known him, 
But it was long ago, in some far-off place 

or forgotten. 
" Gabriel Lajeunesse ! " they said ; " Oh 

yes ! we have seen him. 
He was with Basil the blacksmith, and 

both have gone to the prairies ; 
Coureurs-des-Bois are they, and famous 

hunters and trappers." 
M Gabriel Lajeunesse ! " said others ; " Oh 

yes ! we have seen him. 
He is a Voyageur in the lowlands of 

Louisiana." 
Then would they say, " Dear child ! why 

dream and wait for him longer ? 
Are there not other youths as fair as 

Gabriel ? others 
Who have hearts as tender and true, and 

spirits as loyal ? 
Here is Baptiste Leblanc, the notary's son, 

who has loved thee 
Many a tedious year ; come, give him thy 

hand and be happy ! ■ 
Thou art too fair to be left to braid St. 

Catherine's tresses." 
Then would Evangeline answer, serenely 

but sadly, " I cannot ! 
Whither my heart has gone, there follows 

my hand, and not elsewhere. 
For when the heart goes before, like a 

lamp, and illumines the pathway, 
Many things are made clear, that else lie 

hidden in darkness." 



Thereupon the priest, her friend and father- 
confessor, 

Said, with a smile, " O daughter ! thy God 
thus speaketh within thee ! 

Talk not of wasted affection, affection 
never was wasted ; 

If it enrich not the heart of another, its 
waters, returning 

Back to their springs, like the rain, shall 
fill them full of refreshment ; 

That which the fountain sends forth returns 
again to the fountain. 

Patience ; accomplish thy labor ; accom- 
plish thy work of affection ! 

Sorrow and silence are strong, and patient 
endurance is godlike. 

Therefore accomplish thy labor of love, till 
the heart is made godlike, 

Purified, strengthened, perfected, and ren- 
dered more worthy of heaven ! " 

Cheered by the good man's words, Evange- 
line labored and waited. 

Still in her heart she heard the funeral dirge 
of the ocean, 

But with its sound there was mingled 
a voice that whispered, " Despair 
not ! " 

Thus did that poor soul wander in want and 
cheerless discomfort, 

Bleeding, barefooted, over the shards and 
thorns of existence. 

Let me essay, O Muse ! to follow the wan- 
derer's footsteps ; — 

Not through each devious path, each 
changeful year of existence, 

But as a traveller follows a streamlet! 
course through the valley : 

Far from its margin at times, and seeing 
the gleam of its water 

Here and there, in some open space, and at 
intervals only ; 

Then drawing nearer its banks, through 
sylvan glooms that conceal it, 

Though he behold it not, he can hear its 
continuous murmur ; 

Happy, at length, if he find the spot where 
it reaches an outlet. 



It was the month of May. Far down the 

Beautiful River, 
Past the Ohio shore and past the mouth of 

the Wabash, 



86 



EVANGELINE 



Into the golden stream of the broad and 
swift Mississippi, 

Floated a cumbrous boat, that was rowed 
by Acadian boatmen. 

It was a band of exiles : a raft, as it were, 
from the shipwrecked 

Nation, scattered along the coast, now 
floating together, 

Bound by the bonds of a common belief and 
a common misfortune ; 

Men and women and children, who, guided 
by hope or by hearsay, 

Sought for their kith and their kin among 
the few-acred farmers 

On the Acadian coast, and the prairies of 
fair Opelousas. 

With them Evangeline went, and her guide, 
the Father Felician. 

Onward o'er sunken sands, through a wil- 
derness sombre with forests, 

Day after day they glided adown the turbu- 
lent river ; 

Night after night, by their blazing fires, 
encamped on its borders. 

Now through rushing chutes, among green 
islands, where plumelike 

Cotton-trees nodded their shadowy crests, 
they swept with the current, 

Then emerged into broad lagoons, where 
silvery sand-bars 

Lay in the stream, and along the wimpling 
waves of their margin, 

Shining with snow - white plumes, large 
flocks of pelicans waded. 

Level the landscape grew, and along the 
shores of the river, 

Shaded by china-trees, in the midst of lux- 
uriant gardens, 

Stood the houses of planters, with negro- 
cabins and dove-cots. 

They were approaching the region where 
reigns perpetual summer, 

Where through the Golden Coast, and 
groves of orange and citron, 

Sweeps with majestic curve the river away 
to the eastward. 

They, too, swerved from their course ; and 
entering the Bayou of Plaque- 
mine, 

Soon were lost in a maze of sluggish and 
devious waters, 

Which, like a network of steel, extended in 
every direction. 

Over their heads the towering and tene- 
brous boughs of the cypress 



Met in a dusky arch, and trailing mosses 

in mid-air 
Waved like banners that hang on the walls 

of ancient cathedrals. 
Deathlike the silence seemed, and unbroken, 

save by the herons 
Home to their roosts in the cedar-trees re- 
turning at sunset, 
Or by the owl, as he greeted the moon with 

demoniac laughter. 
Lovely the moonlight was as it glanced and 

gleamed on the water, 
Gleamed on the columns of cypress and 

cedar sustaining the arches, 
Down through whose broken vaults it fell 

as through chinks in a ruin. 
Dreamlike, and indistinct, and strange were 

all things around them ; 
And o'er their spirits there came a feeling 

of wonder and sadness, — 
Strange forebodings of ill, unseen and that 

cannot be compassed. 
As, at the tramp of a horse's hoof on the 

turf of the prairies, 
Far in advance are closed the leaves of the 

shrinking mimosa, 
So, at the hoof-beats of fate, with sad fore- 
bodings of evil, 
Shrinks and closes the heart, ere the stroke 

of doom has attained it. 
But Evangeline's heart was sustained by a 

vision, that faintly 
Floated before her eyes, and beckoned her 

on through the moonlight. 
It was the thought of her brain that as- 
sumed the shape of a phantom. 
Through those shadowy aisles had Gabriel 

wandered before her, 
And every stroke of the oar now brought 

him nearer and nearer. 

Then in his place, at the prow of the 
boat, rose one of the oarsmen, 

And, as a signal sound, if others like them 
peradventure 

Sailed on those gloomy and midnight 
streams, blew a blast on his bugle. 

Wild through the dark colonnades and cor- 
ridors leafy the blast rang, 

Breaking the seal of silence, and giving 
tongues to the forest. 

Soundless above them the banners of moss 
just stirred to the music. 

Multitudinous echoes awoke and died in 
the distance, 



EVANGELINE 



87 



Over the watery floor, and beneath the re- 
verberant branches ; 

But not a voice replied ; no answer came 
from the darkness ; 

And, when the echoes had ceased, like a 
sense of pain was the silence. 

Then Evangeline slept ; but the boatmen 
rowed through the midnight, 

Silent at times, then singing familiar Cana- 
dian boat-songs, 

Such as they sang of old on their own Aca- 
dian rivers, 

While through the night were heard the 
mysterious sounds of the desert, 

Far off, — indistinct, — as of wave or wind 
in the forest, 

Mixed with the whoop of the crane and 
the roar of the grim alligator. 

Thus ere another noon they emerged 
from the shades ; and before them 

Lay, in the golden sun, the lakes of the 
Atchafalaya. 

Water-lilies in myriads rocked on the 
slight undulations 

Made by the passing oars, and, resplendent 
in beauty, the lotus 

Lifted her golden crown above the heads 
of the boatmen. 

Faint was the air with the odorous breath 
of magnolia blossoms, 

And with the heat of noon ; and number- 
less sylvan islands, 

Fragrant and thickly embowered with blos- 
soming hedges of roses, 

Near to whose shores they glided along, 
invited to slumber. 

Soon by the fairest of these their weary 
oars were suspended. 

Under the boughs of Wachita willows, that 
grew by the margin, 

Safely their boat was moored ; and scat- 
tered about on the greensward, 

Tired with their midnight toil, the weary 
travellers slumbered. 

Over them vast and high extended the cope 
of a cedar. 

Swinging from its great arms, the trumpet- 
flower and the grapevine 

Hung their ladder of ropes aloft like the 
ladder of Jacob, 

On whose pendulous stairs the angels 
ascending, descending, 

Were the swift humming-birds, that flitted 
from blossom to blossom. 



Such was the vision Evangeline saw as she 

slumbered beneath it. 
Filled was her heart with love, and the 

dawn of an opening heaven 
Lighted her soul in sleep with the glory of 

regions celestial. 

Nearer, and ever nearer, among the 

numberless islands, 
Darted a light, swift boat, that sped away 

o'er the water, 
Urged on its course by the sinewy arms of 

hunters and trappers. 
Northward its prow was turned, to the land 

of the bison and beaver. 
At the helm sat a youth, with countenance 

thoughtful and careworn. 
Dark and neglected locks overshadowed his 

brow, and a sadness 
Somewhat beyond his years on his face was 

legibly written. 
Gabriel was it, who, weary with waiting, un- 
happy and restless, 
Sought in the Western wilds oblivion of 

self and of sorrow. 
Swiftly they glided along, close under the 

lee of the island, 
But by the opposite bank, and behind a 

screen of palmettos, 
So that they saw not the boat, where it lay 

concealed in the willows ; 
All undisturbed by the dash of their oars, 

and unseen, were the sleepers. 
Angel of God was there none to awaken 

the slumbering maiden. 
Swiftly they glided away, like the shade of 

a cloud on the prairie. 
After the sound of their oars on the tholes 

had died in the distance, 
As from a magic trance the sleepers awoke, 

and the maiden 
Said with a sigh to the friendly priest, " O 

Father Felician ! 
Something says in my heart that near me 

Gabriel wanders. 
Is it a foolish dream, an idle and vague 

superstition ? 
Or has an angel passed, and revealed the 

truth to my spirit ? " 
Then, with a blush, she added, "Alas for 

my credulous fancy ! 
Unto ears like thine such words as these 

have no meaning." 
But made answer the reverend man, and 

he smiled as he answered, — 



88 



EVANGELINE 



u Daughter, thy words are not idle ; nor are 

they to me without meaning. 
Feeling is deep and still ; and the word 

that floats on the surface 
Is as the tossing buoy, that betrays where 

the anchor is hidden. 
Therefore trust to thy heart, and to what 

the world calls illusions. 
Gabriel truly is near thee ; for not far away 

to the southward, 
On the banks of the Teche, are the towns 

of St. Maur and St. Martin. 
There the long-wandering bride shall be 

given again to her bridegroom, 
There the long-absent pastor regain his 

flock and his sheepfold. 
Beautiful is the land, with its prairies and 

forests of fruit-trees ; 
Under the feet a garden of flowers, and the 

bluest of heavens 
Bending above, and resting its dome on the 

walls of the forest. 
They who dwell there have named it the 

Eden of Louisiana ! " 

With these words of cheer they arose and 

continued their journey. 
Softly the evening came. The sun from 

the western horizon 
Like a magician extended his golden wand 

o'er the landscape ; 
Twinkling vapors arose ; and sky and water 

and forest 
Seemed all on fire at the touch, and melted 

and mingled together. 
Hanging between two skies, a cloud with 

edges of silver, 
Floated the boat, with its dripping oars, on 

the motionless water. 
Filled was Evangeline's heart with inex- 
pressible sweetness. 
Touched by the magic spell, the sacred 

fountains of feeling 
Glowed with the light of love, as the skies 

and waters around her. 
Then from a neighboring thicket the mock- 
ing-bird, wildest of singers, 
Swinging aloft on a willow spray that hung 

o'er the water, 
Shook from his little throat such floods of 

delirious music, 
That the whole air and the woods and 

the waves seemed silent to listen. 
Plaintive at first were the tones and sad : 

then soaring to madness 



Seemed they to follow or guide the revel 

of frenzied Bacchantes. 
Single notes were then heard, in Sorrowful, 

low lamentation ; 
Till, having gathered them all, he flung 

them abroad in derision, 
As when, after a storm, a gust of wind 

through the tree-tops 
Shakes down the rattling rain in a crystal 

shower on the branches. 
With such a prelude as this, and hearts 

that throbbed with emotion, 
Slowly they entered the Teche, where it 

flows through the green Opelousas, 
And, through the amber air, above the 

crest of the woodland, 
Saw the column of smoke that arose from 

a neighboring dwelling ; — 
Sounds of a horn they heard, and the dis- 
tant lowing of cattle. 



Ill 

Near to the bank of the river, o'ershad- 
owed by oaks, from whose branches 

Garlands of Spanish moss and of mystic 
mistletoe flaunted, 

Such as the Druids cut down with golden 
hatchets at Yule-tide, 

Stood, secluded and still, the house of the 
herdsman. A garden 

Girded it round about with a belt of luxuri- 
ant blossoms, 

Filling the air with fragrance. The house 
itself was of timbers 

Hewn from the cypress-tree, and carefully 
fitted together. 

Large and low was the roof; and on slender 
columns supported, 

Rose- wreathed, vine-encircled, a broad and 
spacious veranda, 

Haunt of the humming-bird and the bee, 
extended around it. 

At each end of the house, amid the flowers 
of the garden, 

Stationed the dove-cots were, as love's per- 
petual symbol, 

Scenes of endless wooing, and endless con- 
tentions of rivals. 

Silence reigned o'er the place. The line of 
shadow and sunshine 

Ran near the tops of the trees ; but the 
house itself was in shadow, 

And from its chimney-top, ascending and 
slowly expanding 



EVANGELINE 



£nto the evening air, a thin blue column of 
smoke rose. 

In the rear of the house, from the garden 
gate, ran a pathway 

Through the great groves of oak to the 
skirts of the limitless prairie, 

Into whose sea of flowers the sun was 
slowly descending. 

Full in his track of light, like ships with 
shadowy canvas 

Hanging loose from their spars in a motion- 
less calm in the tropics, 
jtood a cluster of trees, with tangled cord- 
age of grape-vines. 

Just where the woodlands met the flowery- 
surf of the prairie, 

Mounted upon his horse, with Spanish sad- 
dle and stirrups, 

Sat a herdsman, arrayed in gaiters and 
doublet of deerskin. 

Broad and brown was the face that from 
under the Spanish sombrero 

Gazed on the peaceful scene, with the 
lordly look of its master. 

Round about him were numberless herds 
of kine, that were grazing 

Quietly in the meadows, and breathing the 
vapory freshness 

That uprose from the river, and spread 
itself over the landscape. 

Slowly lifting the horn that hung at his side, 
and expanding 

Fully his broad, deep chest, he blew a blast, 
that resounded 

Wildly and sweet and far, through the still 
damp air of the evening. 

Suddenly out of the grass the long white 
horns of the cattle 

Rose like flakes of foam on the adverse cur- 
rents of ocean. 

Silent a moment they gazed, then bellow- 
ing rushed o'er the prairie, 

And the whole mass became a cloud, a 
shade in the distance. 

Then, as the herdsman turned to the 
house, through the gate of the gar- 
den 

Saw he the forms of the priest and the 
maiden advancing to meet him. 

Suddenly down from his horse he sprang 
in amazement, and forward 

Rushed with extended arms and exclama- 
tions of wonder ; 



When they beheld his face, they recognized 

Basil the blacksmith. 
Hearty his welcome was, as he led his 

guests to the garden. 
There in an arbor of roses with endley" 

question and answer 
Gave they vent to their hearts, and reneweu 

their friendly embraces, 
Laughing and weeping by turns, or sitting 

silent and thoughtful. 
Thoughtful, for Gabriel came not ; and notf 

dark doubts and misgivings 
Stole o'er the maiden's heart ; and Basil, 

somewhat embarrassed, 
Broke the silence and said, " If you came 

by the Atchafalaya, 
How have you nowhere encountered my 

Gabriel's boat on the bayous ? " 
Over Evangeline's face at the words of 

Basil a shade passed. 
Tears came into her eyes, and she said, 

with a tremulous accent, 
" Gone ? is Gabriel gone ? " and, conceal- 
ing her face on his shoulder, 
All her o'erburdened heart gave way, and 

she wept and lamented. 
Then the good Basil said, — and his voice 

grew blithe as he said it, — 
" Be of good cheer, my child ; it is only to- 
day he departed. 
Foolish boy ! he has left me alone with my 

herds and my horses. 
Moody and restless grown, and tried and 

troubled, his spirit 
Could no longer endure the calm of thir 

quiet existence, 
Thinking ever of thee, uncertain and sor- 
rowful ever, 
Ever silent, or speaking only of thee and hit 

troubles, 
He at length had become so tedious to meii. 

and to maidens, 
Tedious even to me, that at length I be- 
thought me, and sent him 
Unto the town of Adayes to trade for mules 

with the Spaniards. 
Thence he will follow the Indian trails to 

the Ozark Mountains, 

ig for furs in the f< 

trapping the beaver. 
Therefore be of good cheer ; we will follow 

the fugitive lover ; 
He is not far on his way, and the Fates and 

the streams are against him. 



90 



EVANGELINE 



Up and away to-morrow, and through the 

red dew of the morning 
We will follow him fast, and bring him 

back to his prison." 

Then glad voices were heard, and up 
from the banks of the river, 

Borne aloft on his comrades' arms, came 
Michael the fiddler. 

Long under Basil's roof had he lived like a 
god on Olympus, 

Having no other care than dispensing 
music to mortals. 

Far renowned was he for his silver locks 
and his fiddle. 

" Long live Michael," they cried, " our 
brave Acadian minstrel ! " 

As they bore him aloft in triumphal pro- 
cession ; and straightway 

Father Felician advanced with Evangeline, 
greeting the old man 

Kindly and oft, and recalling the past, 
while Basil, enraptured, 

Hailed with hilarious joy his old compan- 
ions and gossips, 

Laughing loud and long, and embracing 
mothers and daughters. 

Much they marvelled to see the wealth of 
the ci-devant blacksmith, 

All his domains and his herds, and his pa- 
triarchal demeanor ; 

Much they marvelled to hear his tales of 
the soil and the climate, 

And of the prairies, whose numberless herds 
were his who would take them ; 

Each one thought in his heart, that he, too, 
would go and do likewise. 

Thus they ascended the steps, and crossing 
the breezy veranda, 

Entered the hall of the house, where al- 
ready the supper of Basil 

Waited his late return ; and they rested 
and feasted together. 

Over the joyous feast the sudden dark- 
ness descended. 

All was silent without, and, illuming the 
landscape with silver, 

Fair rose the dewy moon and the myriad 
stars ; but within doors, 

Brighter than these, shone the faces of 
friends in the glimmering lamp- 
light. 

Then from his station aloft, at the head of 
the table, the herdsman 



Poured forth his heart and his wine ta 

gether in endless profusion. 
Lighting his pipe, that was filled with sweet 

Natchitoches tobacco, 
Thus he spake to his guests, who listened, 

and smiled as they listened : — 
" Welcome once more, my friends, who 

long have been friendless and home*. 

less, 
Welcome once more to a home, that is 

better perchance than the old one ! 
Here no hungry winter congeals our blood 

like the rivers ; 
Here no stony ground provokes the wrath 

of the farmer. 
Smoothly the ploughshare runs through 

the soil, as a keel through the wa- 
ter. 
All the year round the orange-groves are 

in blossom ; and grass grows 
More in a single night than a whole Cana- 
dian summer. 
Here, too, numberless herds run wild and 

unclaimed in the prairies ; 
Here, too, lands may be had for the asking, 

and forests of timber 
With a few blows of the axe are hewn and 

framed into houses. 
After your houses are built, and your fields 

are yellow with harvests, 
No King George of England shall drive 

you away from your homesteads, 
Burning your dwellings and barns, and 

stealing your farms and your 

cattle." 
Speaking these words, he blew a wrathful 

cloud from his nostrils, 
While his huge, brown hand came thunder- 
ing down on the table, 
So that the guests all started ; and Father 

Felician, astounded, 
Suddenly paused, with a pinch of snuff 

half-way to his nostrils. 
But the brave Basil resumed, and his 

words were milder and gayer : — 
" Only beware of the fever, my friends, 

beware of the fever ! 
For it is not like that of our cold Acadian 

climate, 
Cured by wearing a spider hung round 

one's neck in a nutshell ! " 
Then there were voices heard at the door t 

and footsteps approaching 
Sounded upon the stairs and the floor of 

the breezy veranda. 



EVANGELINE 



9* 



It was the neighboring Creoles and small 

AAcadiaii planters, 
Who had been summoned all to the house 

^>f Basil the Herdsman. 
Merry - the meeting was of ancient com- 

^rades and neighbors : 
Friend clasped friend in his arms ; and 

^■hey who before were as strangers, 
Meeting in exile, became straightway as 

\Jt-iends to each other, 
Drawn by the gentle bond of a common 

Country together. 
But in the neighboring hall a strain of 

music, proceeding 
jfrotti the accordant strings of Michael's 

melodious fiddle, 
Broke up all further speech. Away, like 

children delighted, 
All ihings forgotten beside, they gave 

themselves to the maddening 
Whirl of the giddy dance, as it swept and 

swayed to the. music, 
"Dreamlike, with beaming eyes and the rush 
of fluttering garments. 

Meanwhile, apart, at the head of the 

hall, the priest and the herdsman 
Sat, conversing together of past and present 

and future ; 
While Evangeline stood like one entranced, 

for within her 
Olden memories rose, and loud in the midst 

of the music 
Heard she the sound of the sea, and an 

irrepressible sadness 
Came o'er her heart, and unseen she stole 

forth into the garden. 
Beautiful was the night. Behind the black 

wall of the forest, 
Tipping its summit with silver, arose the 

moon. On the river 
Fell here and there through the branches a 

tremulous gleam of the moonlight, 
Like the sweet thoughts of love on a dark- 
ened and devious spirit. 
Nearer and round about her, the manifold 

flowers of the garden 
Poured out their souls in odors, that were 

their prayers and confessions 
Unto the night, as it went its way, like a 

silent Carthusian. 
Fuller of fragrance than they, and as heavy 

with shadows and night-dews, 
Hung the heart of the maiden. The calm 

and the magical moonlight 



Seemed to inundate her soul with indefin- 
able longings, 
As, through the garden-gate, and beneath 

the shade of the oak-trees, 
Passed she along the path to the edge of 

the measureless prairie. 
Silent it lay, with a silvery haze upon it, 

and fire-flies 
Gleamed and floated away in mingled and 

infinite numbers. 
Over her head the stars, the thoughts of 

God in the heavens, 
Shone on the eyes of man, who had ceased 

to marvel and worship, 
Save when a blazing comet was seen on the 

walls of that temple, 
As if a hand had appeared and written 

upon them, "Upharsin." 
And the soul of the maiden, between the 

stars and the fire-flies, 
Wandered alone, and she cried, " O Gabriel! 

O my beloved ! 
Art thou so near unto me, and yet I cannot 

behold thee ? 
Art thou so near unto me, and yet thy voice 

does not reach me ? 
Ah! how often thy feet have trod this path 

to the prairie ! 
Ah ! how often thine eyes have looked on 

the woodlands around me ! 
Ah ! how often beneath this oak, returning 

from labor, 
Thou hast lain down to rest, and to dream 

of me in thy slumbers ! 
When shall these eyes behold, these arms 

be folded about thee ? " 
Loud and sudden and near the notes of a 

whippoorwill sounded 
Like a flute in the woods ; and anon, 

through the neighboring thickets, 
Farther and farther away it floated and 

dropped into silence. 
" Patience ! ' ' whispered the oaks from orac- 
ular caverns of darkness : 
And, from the moonlit meadow, a sigh re- 
sponded, " To-morrow ! " 

Bright rose the sun next day ; and all the 

flowers of the garden 
Bathed his shining feet with their tears, 

and anointed his tresses 
With the delicious balm that they bore in 

their vases of crystal. 
" Farewell ! " said the priest, as he stood at 

the shadowy threshold ; 



C)2 



EVANGELINE 



w See that you bring us the Prodigal Son 
from his fasting and famine, 

And, too, the Foolish Virgin, who slept when 
the bridegroom was coming." 

" Farewell ! " answered the maiden, and, 
smiling, with Basil descended 

Down to the river's brink, where the boat- 
men already were waiting. 

Thus beginning their journey with morn- 
ing, and sunshine, and gladness, 

Swiftly they followed the flight of him who 
was speeding before them, 

Blown by the blast of fate like a dead leaf 
over the desert. 

Not that day, nor the next, nor yet the day 
that succeeded, 

Found they the trace of his course, in lake 
or forest or river, 

'Nov, after many days, had they found him ; 
but vague and uncertain 

Rumors alone were their guides through a 
wild and desolate country ; 

Till, at the little inn of the Spanish town of 
Adayes, 

Weary and worn, they alighted, and learned 
from the garrulous landlord, 

That on the day before, with horses and 
guides and companions, 

Gabriel left the village, and took the road 
of the prairies. 

IV 

Far in the West there lies a desert land, 

where the mountains 
Lift, through perpetual snows, their lofty 

and luminous summits. 
Down from their jagged, deep ravines, 

where the gorge, like a gateway, 
Opens a passage rude to the wheels of the 

emigrant's wagon, 
Westward the Oregon flows and the Walle- 

way and Owyhee. 
Eastward, with devious course, among the 

Wind-river Mountains, 
Through the Sweet- water Valley precipi- 
tate leaps the Nebraska ; 
And to the south, from Fontaine-qui-bout 

and the Spanish sierras, 
Fretted with sands and rocks, and swept 

by the wind of the desert, 
Numberless torrents, with ceaseless sound, 

descend to the ocean, 
Like the great chords of a harp, in loud 

and solemn vibrations. 



Spreading between these streams are the 

wondrous, beautiful prairies ; 
Billowy bays of grass ever rolling in shadow 

and sunshine, 
Bright with luxuriant clusters of roses and 

purple amorphas. 
Over them wandered the buffalo herds, and 

the elk and the roebuck ; 
Over them wandered the wolves, and herds 

of riderless horses ; 
Fires that blast and blight, and winds that 

are weary with travel ; 
Over them wander the scattered tribes of 

Ishmael's children, 
Staining the desert with blood ; and above 

their terrible war-trails 
Circles and sails aloft, on pinions majestic, 

the vulture, 
Like the implacable soul of a chieftain 

slaughtered in battle, 
By invisible stairs ascending and scaling 

the heavens. 
Here and there rise smokes from the camps 

of these savage marauders ; 
Here and there rise groves from the mar- 
gins of swift-running rivers ; 
And the grim, taciturn bear, the anchorite 

monk of the desert, 
Climbs down their dark ravines to dig for 

roots by the brook-side, 
And over all is the skj% the clear and crys- 
talline heaven, 
Like the protecting hand of God inverted 

above them. 

Into this wonderful land, at the base of 

the Ozark Mountains, 
Gabriel far had entered, with hunters and 

trappers behind him. 
Day after day, with their Indian guides, the 

maiden and Basil 
Followed his flying steps, and thought each 

day to o'ertake him. 
Sometimes they saw, or thought they saw, 

the smoke of his camp-fire 
Rise in the morning air from the distant 

plain ; but at nightfall. 
When they had reached the place they 

found only embers and ashes. 
And, though their hearts were sad at times 

and then* bodies were weary, 
Hope still guided them on, as the magic 

Fata Morgana 
Showed them her lakes of light, that re' 

treated and vanished before them. 



EVANGELINE 



93 



Once, as they sat by their evening fire, 

there silently entered 
Into their little camp an Indian woman, 

whose features 
Wore deep traces of sorrow, and patience 

as great as her sorrow. 
She was a Shawnee woman returning home 

to her people, 
From the far-off hunting-grounds of the 

cruel Camanches, 
Where her Canadian husband, a Coureur- 

des-Bois, had been murdered. 
Touched were their hearts at her story, 

and warmest and friendliest wel- 
come 
Gave they, with words of cheer, and she 

sat and feasted among them 
On the buffalo-meat and the venison cooked 

on the embers. 
But when their meal was done, and Basil 

and all his companions, 
Worn with the long day's march and the 

chase of the deer and the bison, 
Stretched themselves on the ground, and 

slept where the quivering fire-light 
Flashed on their swarthy cheeks, and their 

forms wrapped up in their blankets, 
Then at the door of Evangeline's tent she 

sat and repeated 
Slowly, with soft, low voice, and the charm 

of her Indian accent, 
All the tale of her love, with its pleasures, 

and pains, and reverses. 
Much Evangeline wept at the tale, and to 

know that another 
Hapless heart like her own had loved and 

had been disappointed. 
Moved to the depths of her soul by pity 

and woman's compassion, 
Yet in her sorrow pleased that one who had 

suffered was near her, 
She in turn related her love and all its dis- 
asters. 
Mute with wonder the Shawnee sat, and 

when she had ended 
Still was mute ; but at length, as if a mys- 

tsrious horror 
Passed through her brain, she spake, and 

repeated the tale of the Mowis ; 
Mowis, the bridegroom of snow, who won 

and wedded a maiden, 
But, when the morning came, arose and 

passed from the wigwam, 
Fading and melting away and dissolving 

into the sunshine, 



Till she beheld him no more, though she 
followed far into the forest. 

Then, in those sweet, low tones, that seemed 
like a weird incantation, 

Told she the tale of the fair Lilinau, who 
was wooed by a phantom, 

That through the pines o'er her father's 
lodge, in the hush of the twilight, 

Breathed like the evening wind, and whis- 
pered love to the maiden, 

Till she followed his green and waving 
plume through the forest, 

And nevermore returned, nor was seen 
again by her people. 

Silent with wonder and strange surprise, 
Evangeline listened 

To the soft How of her magical words, till 
the region around her 

Seemed like enchanted ground, and her 
swarthy guest the enchantress. 

Slowly over the tops of the Ozark Moun- 
tains the moon rose, 

Lighting the little tent, and with a mys- 
terious splendor 

Touching the sombre leaves, and embracing 
and filling the woodland. 

With a delicious sound the brook rushed 
by, and the branches 

Swayed and sighed overhead in scarcely 
audible whispers. 

Filled with the thoughts of love was Evan- 
geline's heart, but a secret, 

Subtile sense crept in of pain and indefinite 
terror, 

As the cold, poisonous snake creeps into 
the nest of the swallow. 

It was no earthly fear. A breath from the 
region of spirits 

Seemed to float in the air of night ; and 
she felt for a moment 

That, like the Indian maid, she, too, was 
pursuing a phantom. 

With this thought she slept, and the feat 
and the phantom had vanished. 

Early upon the morrow the march was 

resumed ; and the Shawnee 
Said, as they journeyed along, " On the 

western slope of these mountains 
Dwells in his little village the Black Robe 

chief of the Mission. 
Much he teaches the people, and tells them 

of Mary and Jesus. 
Loud laugh their hearts with joy, and weep 

with pain, as they hear him." 



94 



EVANGELINE 



Then, with a sudden and secret emotion, 
Evangeline answered, 

" Let us go to the Mission, for there good 
tidings await us ! " 

Thither they turned their steeds ; and be- 
hind a spur of the mountains, 

Just as the sun went down, they heard a 
murmur of voices, 

And in a meadow green and broad, by the 
bank of a river. 

Saw the tents of the Christians, the tents 
of the Jesuit Mission. 

Under a towering oak, that stood in the 
midst of the village, 

Knelt the Black Robe chief with his chil- 
dren. A crucifix fastened 

High on the trunk of the tree, and over- 
shadowed by grapevines, 

Looked with its agonized face on the multi- 
tude kneeling beneath it. 

This was their rural chapel. Aloft, through 
the intricate arches 

Of its aerial roof, arose the chant of their 
vespers, 

Mingling its notes with the soft susurrus 
and sighs of the branches. 

Silent, with heads uncovered, the travellers, 
nearer approaching, 

Knelt on the swarded floor, and joined in 
the evening devotions. 

But when the service was done, and the 
benediction had fallen 

Forth from the hands of the priest, like seed 
from the hands of the sower, 

Slowly the reverend man advanced to the 
strangers, and bade them 

Welcome ; and when they replied, he smiled 
with benignant expression, 

Hearing the homelike sounds of his mother- 
tongue in the forest, 

And, with words of kindness, conducted 
them into his wigwam. 

There upon mats and skins they reposed, 
and on cakes of the maize-ear 

Feasted, and slaked their thirst from the 
water-gourd of the teacher. 

Soon was their story told ; and the priest 
with solemnity answered: — 

u Not six suns have risen and set since 
Gabriel, seated 

On this mat by my side, where now the 
maiden reposes, 

Told me this same sad tale ; then arose 
and continued his journey! " 



Soft was the voice of the priest, and he 

spake with an accent of kindness ; 
But on Evangeline's heart fell his words as 

in winter the snow-flakes 
Fall into some lone nest from which the 

birds have departed. 
" Far to the north he has gone," continued 

the priest ; " but in autumn, 
When the chase is done, will return again 

to the Mission." 
Then Evangeline said, and her voice was 

meek and submissive, 
" Let me remain with thee, for my soul is 

sad and afflicted." 
So seemed it wise and well unto all ; and 

betimes on the morrow, 
Mounting his Mexican steed, with his Indian 

guides and companions. 
Homeward Basil returned, and Evangeline 

stayed at the Mission. 

Slowly, slowly, slowly the days succeeded 

each other, — 
Days and weeks and months ; and the fields 

of maize that were springing 
Green from the ground when a stranger 

she came, now waving above her, 
Lifted their slender shafts, with leaves 

interlacing, and forming 
Cloisters for mendicant crows and granaries 

pillaged by squirrels. 
Then in the golden weather the maize was 

husked, and the maidens 
Blushed at each blood-red ear, for that be- 
tokened a lover, 
But at the crooked laughed, and called it a 

thief in the corn-field. 
Even the blood -red ear to Evangeline 

brought not her lover. 
" Patience ! " the priest would say ; " have 

faith, and thy prayer will be an- 
swered ! 
Look at this vigorous plant that lifts its 

head from the meadow, 
See how its leaves are turned to the north, 

as true as the magnet ; 
This is the compass-flower, that the finger 

of God has planted 
Here in the houseless wild, to direct the 

traveller's journey 
Over the sea-like, pathless, limitless waste 

of the desert. 
Such in the soul of man is faith. The 

blossoms of passion, 



EVANGELINE 



95 



Gay and luxuriant flowers, are brighter and 

fuller of fragrance, 
But they beguile us, and lead us astray, and 

their odor is deadly. 
Only this humble plant can guide us here, 

and hereafter 
Crown us with asphodel flowers, that are 

wet with the dews of nepenthe." 

So came the autumn, and passed, and the 

winter, — yet Gabriel came not ; 
Blossomed the opening spring, and the notes 

of the robin and bluebird 
Sounded sweet upon wold and in wood, yet 

Gabriel came not. 
But on the breath of the summer winds a 

rumor was wafted 
Sweeter than song of bird, or hue or odor 

of blossom. 
Far to the north and east, it said, in the 

Michigan forests, 
Gabriel had his lodge by the banks of the 

Saginaw River. 
And, with returning guides, that sought the 

lakes of St. Lawrence, 
Saying a sad farewell, Evangeline went 

from the Mission. 
When over weary ways, by long and peril- 
ous marches, 
She had attained at length the depths of 

the Michigan forests, 
Found she the hunter's lodge deserted and 

fallen to ruin ! 

Thus did the long sad years glide on, 
and in seasons and places 

Divers and distant far was seen the wan- 
dering maiden ; — 

Now in the Tents of Grace of the meek 
Moravian Missions, 

Now in the noisy camps and the battle-fields 
of the army, 

Now in secluded hamlets, in towns and 
populous cities. 

Like a phantom she came, and passed away 
unremembered. 

Fair was she and young, when in hope 
began the long journey ; 

Faded was she and old, when in disappoint- 
ment it ended. 

Each succeeding year stole something away 
from her beauty, 

Leaving behind it, broader and deeper, the 
gjoom and the shadow. 



Then there appeared and spread faint 
streaks of gray o'er her forehead, 

Dawn of another life, that broke o'er her 
earthly horizon, 

As in the eastern sky the first faint streaks 
of the morning. 



In that delightful land which is washed by 

the Delaware waters, 
Guarding in sylvan shades the name of 

Penn the apostle, 
Stands on the banks of its beautiful stream 

the city he founded. 
There all the air is balm, and the peach is 

the emblem of beauty, 
And the streets still reecho the names of 

the trees of the forest, 
As if they fain would appease the Dryads 

whose haunts they molested. 
There from the troubled sea had Evange- 
line landed, an exile, 
Finding among the children of Penn a home 

and a country. 
There old Rene' Leblanc had died ; and 

when he departed, 
Saw at his side only one of all his hundred 

descendants. 
Something at least there was in the friendly 

streets of the city, 
Something that spake to her heart, and 

made her no longer a stranger ; 
And her ear was pleased with the Thee and 

Thou of the Quakers, 
For it recalled the past, the old Acadian 

country, 
Where all men were equal, and all were 

brothers and sisters. 
So, when the fruitless search, the disap- 
pointed endeavor, 
Ended, to recommence no more upon earth, 

uncomplaining, 
Thither, as leaves to the light, were turned 

her thoughts and her footsteps. 
As from the mountain's top the rainy mists 

of the morning 
Roll away, and afar we behold the land- 
scape below us, 
Sun-illumined, with shining rivers and cities 

and hamlets, 
So fell the mists from her mind, and she 

saw the world far below her, 



9 6 



EVANGELINE 



Dark no longer, but all illumined with love ; 
and the pathway 

Which she had climbed so far, lying smooth 
and fair in the distance. 

Gabriel was not forgotten. Within her 
heart was his image, 

Clothed in the beauty of love and youth, as 
last she beheld him, 

Only more beautiful made by his death-like 
silence and absence. 

Into her thoughts of him time entered not, 
for it was not. 

Over him years had no power ; he was not 
changed, but transfigured ; 

He had become to her heart as one who is 
dead, and not absent ; 

Patience and abnegation of self, and devo- 
tion to others, 

This was the lesson a life of trial and sor- 
row had taught her. 

So was her love diffused, but, like to some 
odorous spices, 

Suffered no waste nor loss, though filling 
the air with aroma. 

Other hope had she none, nor wish in life, 
but to follow 

Meekly, with reverent steps, the sacred 
feet of her Saviour. 

Thus many years she lived as a Sister of 
Mercy ; frequenting 

Lonely and wretched roofs in the crowded 
lanes of the city, 

Where distress and want concealed them- 
selves from the sunlight, 

Where disease and sorrow in garrets lan- 
guished neglected. 

Night after night, when the world was 
asleep, as the watchman repeated 

Loud, through the gusty streets, that all 
was well in the city, 

High at some lonely window he saw the 
light of her taper. 

Day after day, in the gray of the dawn, as 
slow through the suburbs 

Plodded the German farmer, with flowers 
and fruits for the market, 

Met he that meek, pale face, returning home 
from its watchings. 

Then it came to pass that a pestilence 

fell on the city, 
Presaged by wondrous signs, and mostly 

by flocks of wild pigeons, 
Darkening the sun in their flight, with 

naught in their craws but an acorn. 



And, as the tides of the sea arise in the 

month of September, 
Flooding some silver stream, till it spreads 

to a lake in the meadow, 
So death flooded life, and, o'erflowing its 

natural margin, 
Spread to a brackish lake, the silver 

stream of existence. 
Wealth had no power to bribe, nor beauty 

to charm, the oppressor ; 
But all perished alike beneath the scourge 

of his anger ; — 
Only, alas ! the poor, who had neither 

friends nor attendants, 
Crept away to die in the almshouse, home 

of the homeless. 
Then in the suburbs it stood, in the midst 

of meadows and woodlands ; — 
Now the city surrounds it ; but still, witli 

its gateway and wicket 
Meek, in the midst of splendor, its humble 

walls seemed to echo 
Softly the words of the Lord : " The poor 

ye always have with you." 
Thither, by night and by day, came the 

Sister of Mercy. The dying 
Looked up into her face, and thought, in- 
deed, to behold there 
Gleams of celestial light encircle her fore- 
head with splendor, 
Such as the artist paints o'er the brows of 

saints and apostles, 
Or such as hangs by night o'er a city seen 

at a distance. 
Unto their eyes it seemed the lamps of the 

city celestial, 
Into whose shining gates erelong their 

spirits would enter. 

Thus, on a Sabbath morn, through the 
streets, deserted and silent, 

Wending her quiet way, she entered the 
door of the almshouse. 

Sweet on the summer air was the odor of 
flowers in the garden ; 

And she paused on her way to gather the 
fairest among them, 

That the dying once more might rejoice in 
their fragrance and beauty. 

Then, as she mounted the stairs to the cor- 
ridors, cooled by the east-wind, 

Distant and soft on her ear fell the chimes 
from the belfry of Christ Church, 

While, intermingled with these, across the 
meadows were wafted 



EVANGELINE 



97 



Sounds of psalms, that were sung by 

the Swedes in their church at Wi- 

caco. 
Soft as descending wings fell the calm of 

the hour on her spirit : 
Something within her said, " At length thy 

trials are ended ; " 
And, with light in her looks, she entered 

the chambers of sickness. 
Noiselessly moved about the assiduous, 

careful attendants, 
Moistening the feverish lip, and the aching 

brow, and in silence 
Closing the sightless eyes of the dead, and 

concealing their faces, 
Where on their pallets they lay, like drifts 

of snow by the roadside. 
Many a languid head, upraised as Evange- 
line entered, 
Turned on its pillow of pain to gaze while 

she passed, for her presence 
Fell on their hearts like a ray of the sun on 

the walls of a prison. 
And, as she looked around, she saw how 

Death, the consoler, 
Laying his hand upon many a heart, had 

healed it forever. 
Many familiar forms had disappeared in the 

night time ; 
Vacant their places were, or filled already 

by strangers. 

Suddenly, as if arrested by fear or a feel- 
ing of wonder, 

Still she stood, with her colorless lips apart, 
while a shudder 

Ran through her frame, and, forgotten, 
the flowerets dropped from her fin- 
gers, 

And from her eyes and cheeks the light 
and bloom of the morning. 

Then there escaped from her lips a cry of 
such terrible anguish, 

That the dying heard it, and started up 
from their pillows. 

On the pallet before her was stretched the 
form of an old man. 

Long, and thin, and gray were the locks 
that shaded his temples ; 

But, as he lay in the morning light, his 
face for a moment 

Seemed to assume once more the forms of 
its earlier manhood ; 

So are wont to be changed the faces of 
those who are dying. 



Hot and red on his lips still burned the 

flush of the lever, 
As if life, like the Hebrew, with blood had 

besprinkled its portals, 
That the Angel of Death might see the 

sign, and pass over. 
Motionless, senseless, dying, he lay, and 

his spirit exhausted 
Seemed to be sinking down through infi- 
nite depths in the darkness, 
Darkness of slumber and death, forever 

sinking and sinking. 
Then through those realms of shade, in mul- 
tiplied reverberations, 
Heard he that cry of pain, and through the 

hush that succeeded 
Whispered a gentle voice, in accents tender 

and saint-like, 
" Gabriel ! O my beloved ! " and died away 

into silence. 
Then he beheld, in a dream, once more the 

home of his childhood ; 
Green Acadian meadows, with sylvan 

rivers among them, 
Village, and mountain, and woodlands ; and, 

walking under their shadow, 
As in the days of her youth, Evangeline 

rose in his vision. 
Tears came into his eyes ; and as slowly he 

lifted his eyelids, 
Vanished the vision away, but Evangeline 

knelt by his bedside. 
Vainly he strove to whisper her name, for 

the accents unuttered 
Died on his lips, and their motion revealed 

what his tongue would have spoken. 
Vainly he strove to rise ; and Evangeline, 

kneeling beside him, 
Kissed his dying lips, and laid his head or 

her bosom. 
Sweet was the light of his eyes ; but it sud 

denly sank into darkness, 
As when a lamp is blown out by a gust of 

wind at a casement. 

All was ended now, the hope, and the 
fear, and the sorrow, 

All the aching of heart, the restless, unsat- 
isfied longing, 

All the dull, deep pain, and constant an- 
guish of patience ! 

And, as she pressed once more the lifeless 
head to her bosom, 

Meekly she bowed her own, and murmured, 
" Father, I thank thee ! " 



9 3 



EVANGELINE 



Still stands the forest primeval ; but far 
away from its shadow, 

Side by side, in their nameless graves, the 
lovers are sleeping. 

Under the humble walls of the little Catho- 
lic churchyard, 

In the heart of the city, they lie, unknown 
and unnoticed. 

Daily the tides of life go ebbing and flow- 
ing beside them, 

Thousands of throbbing hearts, where 
theirs are at rest and forever, 

Thousands of aching brains, where theirs 
no longer are busy, 

Thousands of toiling hands, where theirs 
have ceased from their labors, 

Thousands of weary feet, where theirs have 
completed their journey ! 



Still stands the forest primeval ; but un- 
der the shade of its branches 

Dwells another race, with other customs 
and language. 

Only along the shore of the mournful and 
misty Atlantic 

Linger a few Acadian peasants, whose fa- 
thers from exile 

Wandered back to their native land to die 
in its bosom. 

In the fisherman's cot the wheel and the 
loom are still busy ; 

Maidens still wear their Norman caps and 
their kirtles of homespun, 

And by the evening fire repeat Evangeline's 
story, ^ 

While from its rocky caverns the deep- 
voiced, neighboring ocean 

Speaks, and in accents disconsolate answers 
the wail of the forest. 



THE SEASIDE AND THE FIRESIDE 



DEDICATION 

«& one who, walking in the twilight gloom, 
Hears round about him voices as it 
darkens, 
And seeing not the forms from which they 
come, 
Pauses from time to time, and turns and 
hearkens; 

So walking here in twilight, O my friends ! 
I hear your voices, softened by the dis- 
tance, 
And pause, and turn to listen, as each sends 
His words of friendship, comfort, and 
assistance. 

If any thought of mine, or sung or told, 
Has ever given delight or consolation, 

Ye have repaid me back a thousand-fold, 
By every friendly sign and salutation. 

Thanks for the sympathies that ye have 
shown ! 
Thanks for each kindly word, each silent 
token, 
That teaches me, when seeming most alone, 
Friends are around us, though no word 
be spoken. 

Kind messages, that pass from land to land ; 

Kind letters, that betray the heart's deep 

history, 

In which we feel the pressure of a hand, — 

One touch of fire, — and all the rest is 

mystery ! 

The pleasant books, that silently among 
Our household treasures take familiar 
places, 
And are to us as if a living tongue 

Spake from the printed leaves or pictured 
faces ! 

Perhaps on earth I never shall behold, 
With eye of sense, your outward form 
and semblance; 
Therefore to me ye never will grow old, 
But live forever young in my remem- 
brance ! 

Never grow old, nor change, nor pass away ! 
Your gentle voices will flow on forever, 



When life grows bare and tarnished with 
decay, 
As through a leafless landscape flows a 
river. 

Not chance of birth or place has made us 
friends, 
Being oftentimes of different tongues and 
nations, 
But the endeavor for the selfsame ends, 
With the same hopes, and fears, and as- 
pirations. 

Therefore I hope to join your seaside walk, 
Saddened, and mostly silent, with emo- 
tion; 

Not interrupting with intrusive talk 

The grand, majestic symphonies of ocean. 

Therefore I hope, as no unwelcome guest, 
At your warm fireside, when the lamps 
are lighted, 

To have my place reserved among the rest. 
Nor stand as one unsought and uninvited ! 



BY THE SEASIDE 
THE BUILDING OF THE SHIP 

" Build me straight, O worthy Master ! 

Stanch and strong, a goodly vessel, 
That shall laugh at all disaster, 

And with wave and whirlwind wrestle ! " 

The merchant's word 

Delighted the Master heard; 

For his heart was in his work, and the heart 

Giveth grace unto every Art. 

A quiet smile plaj'ed round his lips, 

As the eddies and dimples of the tide 

Play round the bows of ships, 

That steadily at anchor ride. 

And with a voice that was full of glee, 

He answered, " Erelong we will launch 

A vessel as goodly, and strong, and stanch, 

As ever weathered a wintry sea ! " 

And first with nicest skill and art, 

Perfect and finished in every part, 

A little model the Master wrought, 

Which should be to the larger plan 

What the child is to the man, 



fOO 



THE SEASIDE AND THE FIRESIDE 



Its counterpart in miniature ; 
That with a hand more swift and sure 
The greater labor might be brought 
To answer to his inward thought. 
And as he labored, his mind ran o'er 
The various ships that were built of yore, 
And above them all, and strangest of all 
Towered the Great Harry, crank and tall, 
Whose picture was hanging on the wall, 
With bows and stern raised high in air, 
And balconies hanging here and there, 
And signal lanterns and flags afloat, 
And eight round towers, like those that 

frown 
From some old castle, looking down 
Upon the drawbridge and the moat. 
And he said with a smile, " Our ship, I wis, 
Shall be of another form than this I " 
It was of another form, indeed ; 
Built for freight, and yet for speed, 
A beautiful and gallant craft ; 
Broad in the beam, that the stress of the 

blast, 
Pressing down upon sail and mast, 
Might not the sharp bows overwhelm ; 
Broad in the beam, but sloping aft 
With graceful curve and slow degrees, 
That she might be docile to the helm, 
And that the currents of parted seas, 
Closing behind, with mighty force, 
Might aid and not impede her course. 

In the ship-yard stood the Master, 
With the model of the vessel, 
That should laugh at all disaster, 
And with wave and whirlwind wrestle ! 

Covering many a rood of ground, 

Lay the timber piled around ; 

Timber of chestnut, and elm, and oak, 

And scattered here and there, with these, 

The knarred and crooked cedar knees ; 

Brought from regions far away, 

From Pascagoula's sunny bay, 

And the banks of the roaring Roanoke ! 

Ah ! what a wondrous thing it is 

To note how many wheels of toil 

One thought, one word, can set in motion ! 

There 's not a ship that sails the ocean, 

But every climate, every soil, 

Must bring its tribute, great or small, 

And help to build the wooden wall ! 

The sun was rising o'er the sea, 
And long the level shadows lay, 
4s if they, too, the beams would be 



Of some great, airy argosy, 

Framed and launched in a single day. 

That silent architect, the sun, 

Had hewn and laid them eve.ry one, 

Ere the work of man was yet begun. 

Beside the Master, when he spoke, 

A youth, against an anchor leaning, 

Listened, to catch his slightest meaning. 

Only the long waves, as they broke 

In ripples on the pebbly beach, 

Interrupted the old man's speech. 

Beautiful they were, in sooth, 

The old man and the fiery youth ! 

The old man, in whose busy brain 

Many a ship that sailed the main 

Was modelled o'er and o'er again ; — 

The fiery youth, who was to be 

The heir of his dexterity, 

The heir of his house, and his daughter's 

hand, 
When he had built and launched from 

land 
What the elder head had planned. 

" Thus," said he, " will we build this ship ! 

Lay square the blocks upon the slip, 

And follow well this plan of mine. 

Choose the timbers with greatest care ; 

Of all that is unsound beware ; 

For only what is sound and strong 

To this vessel shall belong. 

Cedar of Maine and Georgia pine 

Here together shall combine. 

A goodly frame, and a goodly fame, 

And the Union be her name ! 

For the day that gives her to the sea 

Shall give my daughter unto thee ! " 

The Master's word 

Enraptured the young man heard ; 

And as he turned his face aside, 

With a look of joy and a thrill of pride 

Standing before 

Her father's door, 

He saw the form of his promised bride* 

The sun shone on her golden hair, 

And her cheek was glowing fresh and 

fair, 
With the breath of morn and the soft ses 

air. 
Like a beauteous barge was she, 
Still at rest on the sandy beach, 
Just jeyond the billow's reach ; 
But he 
Was the restless, seething, stormy sea J 



THE BUILDING OF THE SHIP 



lot 



Ah, how skilful grows the hand 
That obeyeth Love's command ! 
It is the heart, and not the brain, 
That to tbe highest doth attain, 
And he who loiloweth Love's behest 
Far excelleth all the rest ! 

Thus with the rising of the sun 

Was the noble task begun, 

And soon throughout the ship-yard's bounds 

Were heard the intermingled sounds 

Of axes and of mallets, plied 

With vigorous arms on every side ; 

Plied so deftly and so well, 

That, ere the shadows of evening fell, 

The keel of oak for a noble ship, 

Scarfed and bolted, straight and strong, 

Was lying ready, and stretched along 

The blocks, well placed upon the slip. 

Happy, thrice happy, every one 

Who sees his labor well begun, 

And not perplexed and multiplied, 

By idly waiting for time and tide ! 

And when the hot, long day was o'er, 

The young man at the Master's door 

Sat with the maiden calm and still, 

And within the porch, a little more 

Removed beyond the evening chill, 

The father sat, and told them tales 

Of wrecks in the great September gales, 

Of pirates coasting the Spanish Main, 

And ships that never came back again, 

The chance and change of a sailor's life, 

Want and plenty, rest and strife, 

His roving fancy, like the wind, 

That nothing can stay and nothing can 

bind, 
And the magic charm of foreign lands, 
With shadows of palms, and shining sands, 
Where the tumbling surf, 
O'er the coral reefs of Madagascar, 
Washes the feet of the swarthy Lascar, 
As he lies alone and asleep on the turf. 
And the trembling maiden held her breath 
At the tales of that awful, pitiless sea, 
With all its terror and mystery, 
The dim, dark sea, so like unto Death, 
That divides and yet unites mankind ! 
And whenever the old man paused, a 

gleam 
From the bowl of his pipe would awhile 

illume 
The silent group in the twilight gloom, 
And thoughtful faces, as in a dream : 



And for a moment one might mark 
What had been hidden by the dark, 
That the head of the maiden lay at rest, 
Tenderly, on the young man's breast ! 

Day by day the vessel grew, 

With timbers fashioned strong and true, 

Stemson and keelson and sternson-knee, 

Till, framed with perfect symmetry, 

A skeleton ship rose up to view ! 

And around the bows and along the side 

The heavy hammers and mallets plied, 

Till after many a week, at length, 

Wonderful for form and strength, 

Sublime in its enormous bulk, 

Loomed aloft the shadowy hulk ! 

And around it columns of smoke, upwreath 

i"g> 
Rose from the boiling, bubbling, seething 
Caldron, that glowed, 
And overflowed 
With the black tar, heated for the sheath- 

ing. 
And amid the clamors 
Of clattering hammers, 
He who listened heard now and then 
The song of the Master and his men : — 

" Build me straight, O worthy Master, 
Stanch and strong, a goodly vessel, 

That shall laugh at all disaster, 

And with wave and whirlwind wrestle ! " 

With oaken brace and copper band, 

Lay the rudder on the sand, 

That, like a thought, should have control 

Over the movement of the whole ; 

And near it the anchor, whose giant hand 

Would reach down and grapple with the 

land, 
And immovable and fast 
Hold the great ship against the bellowing 

blast ! 
And at the bows an image stood, 
By a cunning artist carved in wood, 
With robes of white, that far behind 
Seemed to be fluttering in the wind. 
It was not shaped in a classic mould, 
Not like a Nymph or Goddess of old, 
Or Naiad rising from the water, 
But modelled from the Master's daugb 

ter! 
On many a dreary and misty night, 
'Twill be seen by the rays of the signa) 

light, 



102 



THE SEASIDE AND THE FIRESIDE 



Speeding along through the rain and the 

dark, 
Like a ghost in its snow-white sark, 
The pilot of some phantom bark, 
Guiding the vessel, in its flight, 
By a path none other knows aright ! 

Behold, at last, 
Each tall and tapering mast 
Is swung into its place ; 
Shrouds and stays 
Holding it firm and fast ! 

Long ago, 

In the deer-haunted forests of Maine, 
When upon mountain and plain 
Lay the snow, 

They fell, — those lordly pines ! 
Those grand, majestic pines ! 
'Mid shouts and cheers 
The jaded steers, 
Panting beneath the goad, 
Dragged down the weary, winding road 
Those captive kings so straight and tall, 
To be shorn of their streaming hair, 
And naked and bare, 
To feel the stress and the strain 
Of the wind and the reeling main, 
Whose roar 

Would remind them forevermore 
Of their native forests they should not see 
again. 

And everywhere 
The slender, graceful spars 
Poise aloft in the air, 
And at the mast-head, 
White, blue, and red, 
A flag unrolls the stripes and stars. 
Ah ! when the wanderer, lonely, friendless, 
In foreign harbors shall behold 
That flag unrolled, 
'T will be as a friendly hand 
Stretched out from his native land, 
Filling his heart with memories sweet and 
endless ! 

All is finished ! and at length 

Has come the bridal day 

Of beauty and of strength. 

To-day the vessel shall be launched ! 

With fleecy clouds the sky is blanched, 

And o'er the bay, 

Slowly, in all his splendors dight, 

The great sun rises to behold the sight. 



The ocean old, 

Centuries old, 

Strong as youth, and as uncontrolled, 

Paces restless to and fro, 

Up and down the sands of gold. 

His beating heart is not at rest ; 

And far and wide, 

With ceaseless flow, 

His beard of snow 

Heaves with the heaving of his breast. 

He waits impatient for his bride. 

There she stands, 

With her foot upon the sands, 

Decked with flags and streamers gay, 

In honor of her marriage day, 

Her snow-white signals fluttering, blend 

ing, 
Round her like a veil descending, 
Ready to be 
The bride of the gray old sea. 

On the deck another bride 
Is standing by her lover's side. 
Shadows from the flags and shrouds, 
Like the shadows cast by clouds, 
Broken by many a sudden fleck, 
Fall around them on the deck. 

The prayer is said, 
The service read, 

The joyous bridegroom bows his head ; 
And in tears the good old Master 
Shakes the brown hand of his son, 
Kisses his daughter's glowing cheek 
In silence, for he cannot speak, 
And ever faster 

Down his own the tears begin to run. 
The worthy pastor — 
The shepherd of that wandering flock, 
That has the ocean for its wold, 
That has the vessel for its fold, 
Leaping ever from rock to rock — 
Spake, with accents mild and clear, 
Words of warning, words of cheer, 
But tedious to the bridegroom's ear. 
He knew the chart 
Of the sailor's heart, 
All its pleasures and its griefs, 
All its shallows and rocky reefs, 
All those secret currents, that flow 
With such resistless undertow, 
And lift and drift, with terrible force, 
The will from its moorings and its course. 
Therefore he spake, and thus said 
he: — 



SEAWEED 



ro 3 



" Like unto ships far off at sea, 

Outward or homeward bound, are we. 

Before, behind, and all around, 

Floats and swings the horizon's bound, 

Seems at its distant rim to rise 

And climb the crystal wall of the skies, 

And then again to turn and sink, 

As if we could slide from its outer brink. 

Ah ! it is not the sea, 

It is not the sea that sinks and shelves, 

But ourselves 

That rock and rise 

With endless and uneasy motion, 

Now touching the very skies, 

Now sinking into the depths of ocean. 

Ah ! if our souls but poise and swing 

Like the compass in its brazen ring, 

Ever level and ever true 

To the toil and the task we have to do, 

We shall sail securely, and safely reach 

The Fortunate Isles, on whose shining 

beach 
The sights we see, and the sounds we 

hear, 
Will be those of joy and not of fear ! " 

Then the Master, 

With a gesture of command, 

Waved his hand ; 

And at the word, 

Loud and sudden there was heard, 

All around them and below, 

The sound of hammers, blow on blow, 

Knocking away the shores and spurs. 

And see ! she stirs ! 

She starts, — she moves, — she seems to 

feel 
The thrill of life along her keel, 
And, spurning with her foot the ground, 
With one exulting, joyous bound, 
She leaps into the ocean's arms ! 

And lo ! from the assembled crowd 

There rose a shout, prolonged and loud, 

That to the ocean seemed to say, 

u Take her, O bridegroom, old and gray, 

Take her to thy protecting arms, 

With all her youth and all her charms ! " 

How beautiful she is ! How fair 
She lies within those arms, that press 
Her form with many a soft caress 
Of tenderness and watchful care \ 
Sail forth into the sea, O ship ! 



Through wind and wave, right onward steer! 
The moistened eye, the trembling lip, 
Are not the signs of doubt or fear. 

Sail forth into the sea of life, 
O gentle, loving, trusting wife, 
And safe from all adversity 
Upon the bosom of that sea 
Thy comings and thy goings be ! 
For gentleness and love and trust 
Prevail o'er angry wave and gust ; 
And in the wreck of noble lives 
Something immortal still survives ! • 

Thou, too, sail on, O Ship of State ! 
Sail on, O Union, strong and great ! 
Humanity with all its fears, 
With all the hopes of future years, 
Is hanging breathless on thy fate ! 
We know what Master laid thy keel, 
What Workmen wrought thy ribs of steel, 
Who made each mast, and sail, and rope, 
What anvils rang, what hammers beat, 
In what a forge and what a heat 
Were shaped the anchors of thy hope ! 
Fear not each sudden sound and shock, 
'T is of the wave and not the rock v 
'T is but the flapping of the sail, 
And not a rent made by the gale ! 
In spite of rock and tempest's roar, 
In spite of false lights on the shore, 
Sail on, nor fear to breast the sea ! 
Our hearts, our hopes, are all with thee, 
Our hearts, our hopes, our prayers, oul 

tears, 
Our faith triumphant o'er our fears, 
Are all with thee, — are all with thee ! 



SEAWEED 

When descends on the Atlantic 

The gigantic 
Storm-wind of the equinox, 
Landward in his wrath he scourges 

The toiling surges, 
Laden with seaweed from the rocks 

From Bermuda's reefs ; from edges 

Of sunken ledges, 
In some far-off, bright Azore ; 
From Bahama, and the dashing, 

Silver-flashing 
Surges of San Salvador ; 



104 



THE SEASIDE AND THE FIRESIDE 



From the tumbling surf, that buries 

The Orkneyau skerries, 
Answering the hoarse Hebrides ; 
And from wrecks of ships, and drifting 

Spars, uplifting 
On the desolate, rainy seas ; — 

Ever drifting, drifting, drifting 

On the shifting 
Currents of the restless main ; 
Till in sheltered coves, aud reaches 

Of sandy beaches, 
All have found repose again. 

So when storms of wild emotion 

Strike the ocean 
Of the poet's soul, erelong 
From each cave and rocky fastness, 

In its vastness, 
Floats some fragment of a song : 

From the far-off isles enchanted, 

Heaven has planted 
With the golden fruit of Truth ; 
From the Hashing surf, whose vision 

Gleams Elysian 
In the tropic clime of Youth ; 

From the strong Will, and the Endeavor 

That forever 
Wrestle with the tides of Fate ; 
From the wreck of Hopes far-scattered, 

Tempest-shattered, 
Floating waste and desolate ; — 

Ever drifting, drifting, drifting 

On the shifting 
Currents of the restless heart ; 
Till at length in books recorded, 

They, like hoarded 
Household words, no more depart. 



CHRYSAOR 

In the first edition of The Seaside and the Fireside 
this poem bore the title of The Evening Star. 

Just above yon sandy bar, 

As the day grows fainter and dimmer, 
Lonely and lovely, a single star 

Lights the air with a dusky glimmer. 

Into the ocean faint and far 

Falls the trail of its golden splendor, 



And the gleam of that single star 
Is ever refulgent, soft, and tender. 

Chrysaor, rising out of the sea, 

Showed thus glorious and thus emulous, 
Leaving the arms of Callirrhoe, 

Forever tender, soft, and tremulous. 

Thus o'er the ocean faint and far 

Trailed the gleam of his falchion brightly! 

Is it a God, or is it a star 

That, entranced, I gaze on nightly ! 



THE SECRET OF THE SEA 

Ah ! what pleasant visions haunt me 

As I gaze upon the sea ! 
All the old romantic legends, 

All my dreams, come back to me. 

Sails of silk and ropes of sandal, 
Such as gleam in ancient lore ; 

And the singing of the sailors, 
And the answer from the shore ! 

Most of all, the Spanish ballad 
Haunts me oft, and tarries long, 

Of the noble Count Arnaldos 
And the sailor's mystic song. 

Like the long waves on a sea-beach, 
Where the sand as silver shines, 

With a soft, monotonous cadence, 
Flow its unrhymed lyric lines ; — 

Telling how the Count Arnaldos, 
With his hawk upon his hand, 

Saw a fair and stately galley, 
Steering onward to the land ; — 

How he heard the ancient helmsman 
Chant a song so wild and clear, 

That the sailing sea-bird slowly 
Poised upon the mast to hear, 

Till his soul was full of longing, 

And he cried, with impulse strong, — 

" Helmsman ! for the love of heaven, 
Teach me, too, that wondrous song ! " 

" Wouldst thou," — so the helmsman an 
swered, 
" Learn the secret of the sea ? 



SIR HUMPHREY GILBERT 



105 



Only those who brave its dangers 
Comprehend its mystery ! " 

In each sail that skims the horizon, 
In each landward-blowing breeze, 

I behold that stately galley, 
Hear those mournful melodies ; 

Till my soul is full of longing 

For the secret of the sea, 
And the heart of the great ocean 

Sends a thrilling pulse through me. 



TWILIGHT 

The twilight is sad and cloudy, 
The wind blows wild and free, 

And like the wings of sea-birds 
Flash the white caps of the sea. 

But in the fisherman's cottage 
There shines a ruddier light, 

And a little face at the window 
Peers out into the night. 

Close, close it is pressed to the window, 

As if those childish eyes 
Were locking into the darkness 

To see some form arise. 

And a woman's waving shadow 

Is passing to and fro, 
Now rising to the ceiling, 

Now bowing and bending low. 

What tale do the roaring ocean, 

And the night-wind, bleak and wild, 

As they beat at the crazy casement, 
Telfto that little child ? 

Aud why do the roaring ocean, 

And the night-wind, wild and bleak, 

As they beat at the heart of the mother 
Drive the color from her cheek ? 



SIR HUMPHREY GILBERT 

Southward with fleet of ice 
Sailed the corsair Death ; 



Wild and fast blew the blast, 

And the east- wind was his breath. 

His lordly ships of ice 

Glisten in the sun ; 
On each side, like pennons wide, 

Flashing crystal streamlets run. 

His sails of white sea-mist 



tap] 



)ed with silver rain 



But where he passed there were cast 
Leaden shadows o'er the main. 

Eastward from Campobello 
Sir Humphrey Gilbert sailed ; 

Three days or more seaward he bore, 
Then, alas ! the land-wind failed. 

Alas ! the land-wind failed, 
And ice-cold grew the night ; 

And nevermore, on sea or shore, 
Should Sir Humphrey see the light. 

He sat upon the deck, 

The Book was in his hand ; 
" Do not fear ! Heaven is as near," 

He said, " by water as by land ! " 

In the first watch of the night, 

Without a signal's sound, 
Out of the sea, mysteriously, 

The fleet of Death rose all around. 

The moon and the evening star 
Were hanging in the shrouds ; 

Every mast, as it passed, 

Seemed to rake the passing clouds. 

They grappled with their prize, 
At midnight black and cold ! 

As of a rock was the shock ; 

Heavily the ground-swell rolled. 

Southward through day and dark, 
They drift in close embrace, 

With mist and rain, o'er the open main j 
Yet there seems no change of place. 

Southward, forever southward, 

They drift through dark and day ; 

And like a dream, in the Gulf-Stream 
Sinking, vanish all away. 



lo6 



THE SEASIDE AND THE FIRESIDE 



THE LIGHTHOUSE 

The rocky ledge runs far into the sea, 
And on its outer point, some miles away, 

The Lighthouse lifts its massive masonry, 
A pillar of fire by night, of cloud by day. 

Even at this distance I can see the tides, 
Upheaving, break unheard along its base, 

A speechless wrath, that rises and subsides 
In the white lip and tremor of the face. 

And as the evening darkens, lo ! how bright, 

Through the deep purple of the twilight 

air, 

Beams forth the sudden radiance of its light 

With strange, unearthly splendor in the 

glare ! 

Not one alone ; from each projecting cape 
And perilous reef along the ocean's verge, 

Starts into life a dim, gigantic shape, 
Holding its lantern o'er the restless surge. 

Like the great giaut Christopher it stands 
Upon the brink of the tempestuous wave, 

Wading far out among the rocks and sands, 
The night-o'ertaken mariner to save. 

And the great ships sail outward and return, 
Bending and bowing o'er the billowy 
swells, 
And ever joyful, as they see it burn, 

They wave their silent welcomes and 
farewells. 

They come forth from the darkness, and 
their sails 
Gleam for a moment only in the blaze, 
And eager faces, as the light unveils, 

Gaze at the tower, and vanish while they 
gaze. 

The mariner remembers when a child, 
On his first voyage, he saw it fade and 
sink ; 

And when, returning from adventures wild, 
He saw it rise again o'er ocean's brink. 

Steadfast, serene, immovable, the same 
Year after year, through all the silent 
night 

Burns on forevermore that quenchless flame, 
Shines on that inextinguishable light ! 



It sees the ocean to its bosom clasp 

The rocks and sea-sand with the kiss oi 
peace ; 

It sees the wild winds lift it in their grasp, 
And hold it up, and shake it like a fleece. 

The startled waves leap over it ; the storm 
Smites it with all the scourges of the rain. 

And steadily against its solid form 

Press the great shoulders of the hurri- 



The sea-bird wheeling round it, with the 
din 
Of wings and winds and solitary cries, 
Blinded and maddened by the light within, 
Dashes himself against the glare, and 
dies. 

A new Prometheus, chained upon the rock, 
Still grasping in his hand the fire of Jove, 

It does not hear the cry, nor heed the 
shock, 
But hails the mariner with words of love. 

" Sail on ! '.' it says, " sail on, ye stately 
ships ! 
And with your floating bridge the ocean 
span ; 
Be mine to guard this light from all eclipse, 
Be yours to bring man nearer unto 
man ! " 



THE FIRE OF DRIFT-WOOD 

DEVEREUX FARM, NEAR MARBLEHEAD 

We sat within the farm-house old, 

Whose windows, looking o'er the bay, 

Gave to the sea-breeze damp and cold 
An easy entrance, night and day. 

Not far away we saw the port, 

The strange, old-fashioned, silent town 5 
The lighthouse, the dismantled fort, 

The wooden houses, quaint and brown. 

We sat and talked until the night, 
Descending, filled the little room; 

Our faces faded from the sight, 
Our voices only broke the gloom. 

We spake of many a vanished scene, 
Of what we once had thought and said. 



RESIGNATION 



107 



Of what had been, and might have been, 
And who was changed, and who was 
dead: 



And all that fills the hearts of friends, 
When first they feel, with secret pain, 

Their lives thenceforth have separate 
ends, 
And never can be one again; 

The first slight swerving of the heart, 
That words are powerless to express, 

And leave it still unsaid in part, 
Or say it in too great excess. 

The very tones in which we spake 

Had something strange, I could but 
mark; 

The leaves of memory seemed to make 
A mournful rustling in the dark. 

Oft died the words upon our lips, 
As suddenly, from out the fire 

Built of the wreck of stranded ships, 
The flames would leap and then ex- 
pire. 

And, as their splendor flashed and 
failed, 

We thought of wrecks upon the main, 
Of ships dismasted, that were hailed 

And sent no answer back again. 



The windows, rattling in their frames, 
The ocean, roaring up the beach, 

The gusty blast, the bickering flames, 
All mingled vaguely in our speech; 

Until they made themselves a part 
Of fancies floating through the brain, 

The long-lost ventures of the heart, 
That send no answers back again. 

O flames that glowed! O hearts that 
yearned ! 
They were indeed too much akin, 
The drift-wood fire without that burned, 
The thoughts that burned and glowed 
within. 



BY THE FIRESIDE 

RESIGNATION 

There is no flock, however watched and 
tended, 

But one dead lamb is there ! 
There is no fireside, howsoe'er defended, 

But has one vacant chair ! 

The air is full of farewells to the dying, 

And mournings for the dead; 
The heart of Rachel, for her children cry- 
ing* 

Will not be comforted ! 

Let us be patient ! These severe afflic- 
tions 

Not from the ground arise, 
But oftentimes celestial benedictions 

Assume this dark disguise. 

We see but dimly through the mists and 
vapors; 

Amid these earthly damps 
What seem to us but sad, funereal tapers 

May be heaven's distant lamps. 

There is no Death! What seems so is 
transition ; 

This life of mortal breath 
Is but a suburb of the life elysian, 

Whose portal we call Death. 

She is not dead, — the child of our affec- 
tion, — 
But gone unto that school 
Where she no longer needs our poor pro- 
tection, 
And Christ himself doth rule. 



In that great cloister's stillness and seclu- 
sion, 
By guardian angels led, 
Safe from temptation, safe from sin's pollu- 
tion, 
She lives, whom we call dead. 



io8 



THE SEASIDE AND THE FIRESIDE 



Day after day we think what she is doing 

In those bright realms of air; 
Year after year, her tender steps pursu- 
ing. 

Behold her grown more fair. 

Thus do we walk with her, and keep un- 
broken 
The bond which nature gives, 
Thinking that our remembrance, though 
unspoken, 
May reach her where she lives. 

Not as a child shall we again behold her; 

For when with raptures wild 
In our embraces we again enfold her, 

She will not be a child; 

But a fair maiden, in her Father's man- 
sion, 
Clothed with celestial grace; 
And beautiful with all the soul's expan- 
sion 
Shall we behold her face. 

And though at times impetuous with emo- 
tion 
And anguish long suppressed, 
The swelling heart heaves moaning like the 
ocean, 
That cannot be at rest, — 

We will be patient, and assuage the feel- 
ing 

We may not wholly stay ; 
By silence sanctifying, not concealing, 

The grief that must have way. 



THE BUILDERS 

All are architects of Fate, 

Working in these walls of Time; 

Some with massive deeds and great, 
Some with ornaments of rhyme. 

Nothing useless is, or low; 

Each thing in its place is best; 



And what seems but idle show 

Strengthens and supports the rest. 

For the structure that we raise, 
Time is with materials filled; 

Our to-days and yesterdays 

Are the blocks with which we build. 



Truly shape and fashion these; 

Leave no yawning gaps between; 
Think not, because no man sees, 

Such things will remain unseen. 

In the elder days of Art, 

Builders wrought with greatest care 
Each minute and unseen part; 

For the Gods see everywhere. 



Let us do our work as well, 
Both the unseen and the seen; 

Make the house, where Gods may 
dwell, 
Beautiful, entire, and clean. 



Else our lives are incomplete, 
Standing in these walls of Time, 

Broken stairways, where the feet 
Stumble as they seek to climb. 

Build to-day, then, strong and sure, 
With a firm and ample base; 

And ascending and secure 

Shall to-morrow find its place. 

Thus alone can we attain 

To those turrets, where the eye 

Sees the world as one vast plain, 
And one boundless reach of sky. 



SAND OF THE DESERT IN AN 
HOUR-GLASS 

A handful of red sand, from the hot clime 
Of Arab deserts brought, 



THE OPEN WINDOW 



109 



Within this glass becomes the spy of 
Time, 
The minister of Thought. 

How many weary centuries has it been 

About those deserts blown ! 
How many strange vicissitudes has seen, 

How many histories known ! 

Perhaps the camels of the Ishmaelite 
Trampled and passed it o'er, 

When into Egypt from the patriarch's 
sight 
His favorite son they bore. 

Perhaps the feet of Moses, burnt and 
bare, 

Crushed it beneath their tread, 
Or Pharaoh's flashing wheels into the air 

Scattered it as they sped; 

Or Mary, with the Christ of Nazareth 

Held close in her caress, 
Whose pilgrimage of hope and love and 
faith 

Illumed the wilderness: 



Or anchorites beneath Engaddi's palms 

Pacing the Dead Sea beach, 
And singing slow their old Armenian psalms 

In half-articulate speech; 



Or caravans, that from Bassora's gate 
With westward steps depart; 

Or Mecca's pilgrims, confident of Fate, 
And resolute in heart ! 



These have passed over it, or may have 
passed ! 

Now in this crystal tower 
Imprisoned by some curious hand at last, 

It counts the passing hour. 

And as I gaze, these narrow walls ex- 
pand; — 

Before my dreamy eye 
Stretches the desert with its shifting sand, 

Its unimpeded sky. 



And borne aloft by the sustaining blast, 

This little golden thread 
Dilates into a column high and vast, 

A form of fear and dread. 



And onward, and across the setting sun, 
Across the boundless plain, 

The column and its broader shadow run, 
Till thought pursues in vain. 

The vision vanishes i These walls agair* 

Shut out the lurid sun, 
Shut out the hot, immeasurable plain; 

The half-hour's sand is run ! 



THE OPEN WINDOW 

The old house by the lindens 
Stood silent in the shade, 

And on the gravelled pathway 
The light and shadow played. 

I saw the nursery windows 

Wide open to the air; 
But the faces of the children, 

They were no longer there. 

The large Newfoundland house-dog 
Was standing by the door; 

He looked for his little playmates, 
Who would return no more. 



They walked not under the lindens, 
They played not in the hall; 

But shadow, and silence, and sadness 
Were hanging over all. 

The birds sang in the branches, 
With sweet, familiar tone; 

But the voices of the children 
Will be heard in dreams alone 1 



And the boy that walked beside me, 
He could not understand 

Why closer in mine, ah ! closer, 
I pressed his warm, soft hand ! 



THE SEASIDE AND THE FIRESIDE 



KING WITLAF'S DRINKING- 
HORN 

Witlaf, a king of the Saxons, 
Ere yet his last he breathed, 

To the merry monks of Croyland 
His drinking-horn bequeathed, — 

That, whenever they sat at their revels, 
And drank from the golden bowl, 

They might remember the donor, 
And breathe a prayer for his soul. 

So sat they once at Christmas, 

And bade the goblet pass; 
In their beards the red wine glistened 

Like dew-drops in the grass. 

They drank to the soul of Witlaf, 
They drank to Christ the Lord, 

And to each of the Twelve Apostles, 
Who had preached his holy word. 

They drank to the Saints and Martyrs 

Of the dismal days of yore, 
And as soon as the horn was empty 

They remembered one Saint more. 

And the reader droned from the pulpit, 
Like the murmur of many bees, 

The legend of good Saint Guthlac, 
And Saint Basil's homilies; 

Till the great bells of the convent, 
From their prison in the tower, 

Guthlac and Bartholomseus, 
Proclaimed the midnight hour. 

And the Yule-log cracked in the chim- 
ney, 

And the Abbot bowed his head, 
And the flamelets flapped and flickered, 

But the Abbot was stark and dead. 

Yet still in his pallid fingers 
He clutched the golden bowl, 

In which, like a pearl dissolving, 
Had sunk and dissolved his soul. 



But not for this their revels 

The jovial monks forbore, 
For they cried, " Fill high the goblet ! 

We must drink to one Saint more ! " 



GASPAR BECERRA 

By his evening fire the artist 
Pondered o'er his secret shame; 

Baffled, weary, and disheartened, 

Still he mused, and dreamed of fame. 

'T was an image of the Virgin 
That had tasked his utmost skill; 

But, alas ! his fair ideal 

Vanished and escaped him still. 

From a distant Eastern island 

Had the precious wood been brought; 

Day and night the anxious master 
At his toil untiring wrought; 

Till, discouraged and desponding, 

Sat he now in shadows deep, 
And the day's humiliation 

Found oblivion in sleep. 

Then a voice cried, " Rise, O master ! 

From the burning brand of oak 
Shape the thought that stirs within thee! " — * 

And the startled artist woke, — 

Woke, and from the smoking embers 
Seized and quenched the glowing wood; 

And therefrom he carved an image, 
And he saw that it was good. 

O thou sculptor, painter, poet ! 

Take this lesson to thy heart: 
That is best which lieth nearest; 

Shape from that thy work of art. 



PEGASUS IN POUND 

Once into a quiet village, 

Without haste and without heed, 
In the golden prime of morning, 

Strayed the poet's winged steed. 



TEGN£R'S drapa 



in 



It was Autumn, and incessant 

Piped the quails from shocks and sheaves, 
And, like living coals, the apples 

Burned among the withering leaves. 

Loud the clamorous bell was ringing 
From its belfry gaunt and grim; 

'T was the daily call to labor, 
Not a triumph meant for him. 

Not the less he saw the landscape, 

In its gleaming vapor veiled; 
Not the less he breathed the odors 

That the dying leaves exhaled. 

Thus, upon the village common, 
By the school-boys he was found ; 

And the wise men, in their wisdom, 
Put him straightway into pound. 

Then the sombre village crier, 

Ringing loud his brazen bell, 
Wandered down the street proclaiming 

There was an estray to sell. 

And the curious country people, 
Rich and poor, and young and old, 

Came in haste to see this wondrous 
Winged steed, with mane of gold. 

Thus the day passed, and the evening 
Fell, with vapors cold and dim; 

But it brought no food nor shelter, 
Brought no straw nor stall, for him. 

Patiently, and still expectant, 

Looked he through the wooden bars, 

Saw the moon rise o'er the landscape, 
Saw the tranquil, patient stars; 

Till at length the bell at midnight 

Sounded from its dark abode, 
And, from out a neighboring farm- 
yard, 

Loud the cock Alectryon crowed. 

Then, with nostrils wide distended, 
Breaking from his iron chain, 



And unfolding far his pinions, 
To those stars he soared again. 

On the morrow, when the village 
Woke to all its toil and care, 

Lo ! the strange steed had departed, 
And they knew not when nor where. 

But they found, upon the greensward 
Where his struggling hoofs had trod, 

Pure and bright, a fountain flowing 
From the hoof-marks in the sod. 



From that hour, the fount unfailing 
Gladdens the whole region round, 

Strengthening all who drink its waters, 
While it soothes them with its sound. 



TEGNfiR'S DRAPA 

I heard a voice, that cried, 
' Balder the Beautiful 
Is dead, is dead ! " 
And through the misty air 
Passed like the mournful cry 
Of sunward sailing cranes. 

I saw the pallid corpse 

Of the dead sun 

Borne through the Northern sky,, 

Blasts from Niffelheim 

Lifted the sheeted mists 

Around him as he passed. 

And the voice forever cried, 
' Balder the Beautiful 
Is dead, is dead ! " 
And died away 
Through th«s dreary night, 
In accents of despair. 

Balder the Beautiful, 
God of the summer sun, 
Fairest of all the Gods ! 
Light from his forehead beamed, 
Runes were upon his tongue, 
As on the warrior's sword. 



ii2 THE SEASIDE AND THE FIRESIDE 


All things in earth and air 




Bound were by magic spell 


SONNET 


Never to do him harm; 




Even the plants and stones; 


ON MRS. KEMBLE'S READINGS FROM 


All save the mistletoe, 


SHAKESPEARE 


The sacred mistletoe ! 






precious evenings ! all too swiftly 


Hceder, the blind old God, 


sped ! 


Whose feet are shod with silence, 


Leaving us heirs to amplest heritages 


Pierced through that gentle breast 


Of all the best thoughts of the greatest 


With his sharp spear, by fraud, 


sages, 


Made of the mistletoe, 


And giving tongues unto the silent 


The accursed mistletoe ! 


dead ! 




How our hearts glowed and trembled as she 


They laid him in his ship, 


read, 


With horse and harness, 


Interpreting by tones the wondrous pages 


As on a funeral pyre. 


Of the great poet who foreruns the 


Odin placed 


ages, 


A ring upon his finger, 


Anticipating all that shall be said ! 


And whispered in his ear. 


O happy Reader ! having for thy text 




The magic book, whose Sibylline leaves 


They launched the burning ship ! 


have caught 


It floated far away 


The rarest essence of all human thought I 


Over the misty sea, 


happy Poet ! by no critic vext ! 


Till like the sun it seemed, 


How must thy listening spirit now rejoice 


Sinking beneath the waves. 


To be interpreted by such a voice ! 


Balder returned no more ! 




So perish the old Gods ! 


THE SINGERS 


But out of the sea of Time 




Rises a new land of song, 


God sent his Singers upon earth 


Fairer than the old. 


With songs of sadness and of mirth, 


Over its meadows green 


That they might touch the hearts of men, 


Walk the young bards and sing. 


And bring them back to heaven again. 


Build it again, 


The first, a youth with soul of fire, 


O ye bards, 


Held in his hand a golden lyre; 


Fairer than before ! 


Through groves he wandered, and by 


Ye fathers of the new race, 


streams, 


Feed upon morning dew, 


Playing the music of our dreams. 


Sing the new Song of Love ! 






The second, with a bearded face, 


The law of force is dead ! 


Stood singing in the market-place, 


The law of love prevails ! 


And stirred with accents deep and loud 


Thor, the thunderer, 


The hearts of all the listening crowd. 


Shall rule the earth no more, 




No more, with threats, 


A gray old man, the third and last, 


Challenge the meek Christ. 


Sang in cathedrals dim and vast, 




While the majestic organ rolled 


Sing no more, 


Contrition from its mouths of gold. 


O ye bards of the North, 




Of Vikings and of Jarls ! 


And those who heard the Singers three 


Of the days of Eld 


Disputed which the best might be; 


Preserve the freedom only, 


For still their music seemed to start 


Not the deeds of blood ! 


Discordant echoes in each heart. 



THE SONG OF HIAWATHA 



n 3 



But the great Master said, " I see 

No best in kind, but in degree ; 

I gave a various gift to each, 

To charm, to strengthen, and to teach. 

" These are the three great chords of 

might, 
And he whose ear is tuned aright 
Will hear no discord in the three, 
But the most perfect harmony." 



SUSPIRIA 



Take them, O Death ! and bear away 



What* 



thou canst call thine 



Thine image, stamped upon this clay, 
Doth give thee that, but that alone ! 

Take them, O Grave ! and let them lie 
Folded upon thy narrow shelves, 

As garments by the soul laid by, 
And precious only to ourselves ! 

Take them, O great Eternity ! 

Our little life is but a gust 
That bends the branches of thy tree, 

And trails its blossoms in the dust ! 



HYMN 

FOR MY BROTHER'S ORDINATION 

Christ to the young man said : " Yet one 
thing more; 

If thou wouldst perfect be, 
Sell all thou hast and give it to the poor, 

And come and follow me ! " 

Within this temple Christ again, unseen, 
Those sacred words hath said, 

And his invisible hands to-day have been 
Laid on a young man's head. 

And evermore beside him on his way 
The unseen Christ shall move, 

That he may lean upon his arm and say, 
" Dost thou, dear Lord, approve ? " 

Beside him at the marriage feast shall 
be, 

To make the scene more fair; 
Beside him in the dark Gethseniana 

Of pain and midnight prayer. 

O holy trust ! O endless sense of rest ! 

Like the beloved John 
To lay his head upon the Saviour's breast. 

And thus to journey on ! 



THE SONG OF HIAWATHA 



Mr. Longfellow began writing Hiawatha June 25, 
1854. It was finished March 29, 1855, and published 
November 10. It is doubtful if the poet wrote any of 
his longer works with more abandonment, with more 
thorough enjoyment of his task, with a keener sense of 
the originality of his venture, and by consequence, with 
more perplexity when he thought of his readers. He 
tried the poem on his friends more freely than had been 
customary with him, and with varied results. His own 
mind, as he neared the test of publication, wavered a 
little in its moods. " Proof sheets of Hiawatha," he 
wrote in June, 1855. " I am growing idiotic about this 
song, and no longer know whether it is good or bad; " 



and later still : " In great doubt about a canto of Hia- 
watha, — whether to retain or suppress it. It is odd 
how confused one's mind becomes about such matters 
from long looking at the same subject." 

No sooner was the poem published than its popularity 
was assured, and it was subjected to the most searching 
tests. 

Meanwhile the book had an unexampled sale, and the 
letters which the poet received from Emerson, Haw- 
thorne, Parsons, Taylor, and others showed the judg- 
ment passed upon his work by those who«e poetic 
perception was not blunted by habits of professional 
criticism nor taken captive by mere novelty. 



INTRODUCTION 

Should you ask me, whence these stcries ? 
Whence these legends and traditions, 
With the odors of the forest, 
With the dew and damp of meadows, 



With the curling smoke of wigwams, 
With the rushing of great rivers, 
With their frequent repetitions, 
And their wild reverberations, 
As of thunder in the mountains ? 
I should answer, I should tell you, 



U4 



THE SONG OF HIAWATHA 



" From the forests and the prairies, 
From the great lakes of the Northland, 
From the land of the Ojibways, 
From the land of the Dacotahs, 
From the mountains, moors, and fen- 
lands 
Where the heron, the Shuh-shuh-gah, 
Feeds among the reeds and rushes. 
I repeat them as I heard them 
From the lips of Nawadaha, 
The musician, the sweet singer." 

Should you ask where Nawadaha 
Found these songs so wild and wayward, 
Found these legends and traditions, 
I should answer, I should tell you, 
" In the bird's-nests of the forest, 
In the lodges of the beaver, 
In the hoof-prints of the bison, 
In the eyry of the eagle ! 

" All the wild-fowl sang them to him, 
In the moorlands and the fen-lands, 
In the melancholy marshes ; 
Chetowaik, the plover, sang them, 
Mahng, the loon, the wild-goose, Wawa, 
The blue heron, the Shuh-shuh-gah, 
And the grouse, the Mushkodasa ! " 

If still further you should ask me, 
Saying, " Who was Nawadaha ? 
Tell us of this Nawadaha," 
I should answer your inquiries 
Straightway in such words as follow. 

" In the vale of Tawasentha, 
In the green and silent valley, 
By the pleasant water-courses, 
Dwelt the singer Nawadaha. 
Round about the Indian village 
Spread the meadows and the corn-fields, 
And beyond them stood the forest, 
Stood the groves of singing pine-trees, 
Green in Summer, white in Winter, 
Ever sighing, ever singing. 

" And the pleasant water-courses, 
You could trace them through the val- 
ley, 
By the rushing in the Spring-time, 
By the alders in the Summer, 
By the white fog in the Autumn, 
By the black line in the Winter ; 
And beside them dwelt the singer, 
In the vale of Tawasentha, 
In the green and silent valley. 

" There he sang of Hiawatha, 
Sang the Song of Hiawatha, 
Sang his wondrous birth and being, 



How he prayed and how he fasted, 
How he lived, and toiled, and suffered, 
That the tribes of men might prosper, 
That he might advance his people ! " 

Ye who love the haunts of Nature, 
Love the sunshine of the meadow, 
Love the shadow of the forest, 
Love the wind among the branches, 
And the rain-shower and the snow-storn% 
And the rushing of great rivers 
Through their palisades of pine-trees. 
And the thunder in the mountains, 
Whose innumerable echoes 
Flap like eagles in their eyries ; — 
Listen to these wild traditions, 
To this Song of Hiawatha ! 

Ye who love a nation's legends, 
Love the ballads of a people, 
That like voices from afar off 
Call to us to pause and listen, 
Speak in tones so plain and childlike, 
Scarcely can the ear distinguish 
Whether they are sung or spoken ; — 
Listen to this Indian Legend, 
To this Song of Hiawatha ! 

Ye whose hearts are fresh and simple^ 
Who have faith in God and Nature, 
Who believe that in all ages 
Every human heart is human, 
That in even savage bosoms 
There are longings, yearnings, strivings 
For the good they comprehend not, 
That the feeble hands and helpless, 
Groping blindly in the darkness, 
Touch God's right hand in that darfe 

ness 
And are lifted up and strengthened ; — 
Listen to this simple story, 
To this Song of Hiawatha ! 

Ye, who sometimes, in your rambles 
Through the green lanes of the country. 
Where the tangled barberry-bushes 
Hang their tufts of crimson berries 
Over stone walls gray with mosses, 
Pause by some neglected graveyard, 
For a while to muse, and ponder 
On a half-effaced inscription, 
Written with little skill of song-craft, 
Homely phrases, but each letter 
Full of hope and yet of heart-break, 
Full of all the tender pathos 
Of the Here and the Hereafter ; — 
Stay and read this rude inscription, 
Read this Song of Hiawatha ! 



THE SONG OF HIAWATHA 



n> 



THE PEACE-PIPE 

On the Mountains of the Prairie, 
On the great Red Pipe-stone Quarry, 
Gitche Manito, the mighty, 
He the Master of Life, descending, 
On the red crags of the quarry 
Stood erect, and called the nations, 
Called the tribes of men together. 

From his footprints flowed a river, 
Leaped into the light of morning, 
O'er the precipice plunging downward 
Gleamed like Ishkoodah, the comet. 
And the Spirit, stooping earthward, 
With his finger on the meadow 
Traced a winding pathway for it, 
Saying to it, " Run in this way ! " 

From the red stone of the quarry 
With his hand he broke a fragment, 
Moulded it into a pipe-head, 
Shaped and fashioned it with figures ; 
From the margin of the river 
Took a long reed for a pipe-stem, 
With its dark green leaves upon it ; 
Filled the pipe with bark of willow, 
With the bark of the red willow ; 
Breathed upon the neighboring forest, 
Made its great boughs chafe together, 
Till in flame they burst and kindled ; 
And erect upon the mountains, 
Gitche Manito, the mighty, 
Smoked the calumet, the Peace-Pipe, 
As a signal to the nations. 

And the smoke rose slowly, slowly, 
Through the tranquil air of morning, 
First a single line of darkness, 
Then a denser, bluer vapor, 
Then a snow-white cloud unfolding, 
Like the tree-tops of the forest, 
Ever rising, rising, rising, 
Till it touched the top of heaven, 
Till it broke against the heaven, 
And rolled outward all around it. 

From the Vale of Tawasentha, 
From the Valley of Wyoming, 
From the groves of Tuscaloosa, 
From the far-off Rocky Mountains, 
From the Northern lakes and rivers 
All the tribes beheld the signal, 
Saw the distant smoke ascending, 
The Pukwana of the Peace-Pipe. 

And the Prophets of the nations 



Said : " Behold it, the Pukwana ! 
By this signal from afar off, 
Bending like a wand of willow, 
Waving like a hand that beckons, 
Gitche Manito, the mighty, 
Calls the tribes of men together, 
Calls the warriors to his council ! " 
Down the rivers, o'er the prairies, 
Came the warriors of the nations, 
Came the Delawares and Mohawks, 
Came the Choctaws and Camanches, 
Came the Shoshonies and Blackfeet, 
Came the Pawnees and Omahas, 
Came the Mandans and Dacotahs, 
Came the Hurons and Ojibways, 
All the warriors drawn together 
By the signal of the Peace-Pipe, 
To the Mountains of the Prairie, 
To the great Red Pipe-stone Quarry. 

And they stood there on the meadow, 
With their weapons and their war-gear, 
Painted like the leaves of Autumn, 
Painted like the sky of morning, 
Wildly glaring at each other ; 
In their faces stern defiance, 
In their hearts the feuds of ages, 
The hereditary hatred, 
The ancestral thirst of vengeance. 

Gitche Manito, the mighty, 
The creator of the nations, 
Looked upon them with compassion, 
With paternal love and pity ; 
Looked upon their wrath and wrangling 
But as quarrels among children, 
But as feuds and fights of children ! 

Over them he stretched his right hand, 
To subdue their stubborn natures, 
To allay their thirst and fever, 
By the shadow of his right hand ; 
Spake to them with voice majestic 
As the sound of far-off waters, 
Falling into deep abysses, 
Warning, chiding, spake in this wise : — 

" O my children ! my poor children ! 
Listen to the words of wisdom, 
Listen to the words of warning, 
From the lips of the Great Spirit, 
From the Master of Life, who made you I 

" I have given you lands to hunt in, 
I have given you streams to fish in, 
I have given you bear and bison, 
I have given you roe and reindeer, 
I have given you brant and beaver, 
Filled the marshes full of wild-fowl, 
Filled the rivers full of fishes : 



116 



THE SONG OF HIAWATHA 



Why then are you not contented ? 
Why then will you hunt each other ? 

" I am weary of your quarrels, 
Weary of your wars and bloodshed, 
Weary of your prayers for vengeance, 
Of your wranglings and dissensions ; 
All your strength is in your union, 
All your danger is in discord ; 
Therefore be at peace henceforward, 
And as brothers live together. 

" I will send a Prophet to you, 
A Deliverer of the nations, 
Who shall guide you and shall teach you, 
Who shall toil and suffer with you. 
If you listen to his counsels, 
You will multiply and prosper ; 
If his warnings pass unheeded, 
You will fade away and perish ! 

"Bathe now in the stream before you, 
Wash the war-paint from your faces, 
Wash the blood-stains from your fingers, 
Bury your war-clubs and your weapons, 
Break the red stone from this quarry, 
Mould and make it into Peace-Pipes, 
Take the reeds that grow beside you, 
Deck them with your brightest feathers, 
Smoke the calumet together, 
And as brothers live henceforward ! " 

Then upon the ground the warriors 
Threw their cloaks and shirts of deer-skin, 
Threw their weapons and their war-gear, 
Leaped into the rushing river, 
Washed the war-paint from their faces. 
Clear above them flowed the water, 
Clear and limpid from the footprints 
Of the Master of Life descending ; 
Dark below them flowed the water, 
Soiled and stained with streaks of crimson, 
As if blood were mingled with it ! 

From the river came the warriors, 
Clean and washed from all their war-paint ; 
On the banks their clubs they buried, 
Buried all their warlike weapons. 
Gitche Manito, the mighty, 
The Great Spirit, the creator, 
Smiled upon his helpless children ! 

And in silence all the warriors 
Broke the red stone of the quarry, 
Smoothed and formed it into Peace-Pipes, 
Broke the long reeds by the river, 
Decked them with their brightest feathers, 
And departed each one homeward, 
While the Master of Life, ascending, 
Through the opening of cloud-curtains, 
Through the doorways of the heaven., 



Vanished from before their faces, 
In the smoke that rolled around him, 
The Pukwana of the Peace-Pipe I 



II 



THE FOUR WINDS 



" Honor be to Mudjekeewis ! " 
Cried the warriors, cried the old men 8 
When he came in triumph homeward 
With the sacred Belt of Wampum, 
From the regions of the North-Wind, 
From the kingdom of Wabasso, 
From the land of the White Rabbit. 

He had stolen the Belt of Wampum 
From the neck of Mishe-Mokwa, 
From the Great Bear of the mountains* 
From the terror of the nations, 
As he lay asleep and cumbrous 
On the summit of the mountains, 
Like a rock with mosses on it, 
Spotted brown and gray with mosses. 

Silently he stole upon him 
Till the red nails of the monster 
Almost touched him, almost scared hint 
Till the hot breath of his nostrils 
Warmed the hands of Mudjekeewis, 
As he drew the Belt of Wampum 
Over the round ears, that heard not, 
Over the small eyes, that saw not, 
Over the long nose and nostrils, 
The black muffle of the nostrils, 
Out of which the heavy breathing 
Warmed the hands of Mudjekeewis. 

Then he swung aloft his war-club, 
Shouted loud and long his war-cry, 
Smote the mighty Mishe-Mokwa 
In the middle of the forehead, 
Right between the eyes he smote him. 

With the heavy blow bewildered, 
Rose the Great Bear of the mountains 
But his knees beneath him trembled, 
And he whimpered like a woman, 
As he reeled and staggered forward, 
As he sat upon his haunches ; 
And the mighty Mudjekeewis, 
Standing fearlessly before him, 
Taunted him in loud derision, 
Spake disdainfully in this wise : — 

" Hark you, Bear ! you are a coward ; 
And no Brave, as you pretended ; 
Else you would not cry and whimper 
Like a miserable woman ! 



THE SONG OF HIAWATHA 



*? 



Bear ! you know our tribes are hostile, 
Long have been at war together ; 
Now you find that we are strongest, 
You go sneaking in the forest, 
You go hiding in the mountains ! 
Had you conquered me in battle 
Not a groan would I have uttered ; 
But you, Bear ! sit here and whimper, 
And disgrace your tribe by crying, 
Like a wretched Shaugodaya, 
Like a cowardly old woman ! " 

Then again he raised his war-club, 
Smote again the Mishe-Mokwa 
In the middle of his forehead, 
Broke his skull, as ice is broken 
When one goes to fish in Winter. 
Thus was slain the Mishe-Mokwa, 
He the Great Bear of the mountains, 
He the terror of the nations. 

" Honor be to Mudjekeewis ! " 
With a shout exclaimed the people, 
" Honor be to Mudjekeewis ! 
Henceforth he shall be the West- Wind, 
And hereafter and forever 
Shall he hold supreme dominion 
Over all the winds of heaven. 
Call him no more Mudjekeewis, 
Call him Kabeyun, the West-Wind ! " 

Thus was Mudjekeewis chosen 
Father of the Winds of Heaven. 
For himself he kept the West- Wind, 
Gave the others to his children ; 
Unto Wabun gave the East-Wind, 
Gave the South to Shawondasee, 
And the North-Wind, wild and cruel, 
To the fierce Kabibonokka. 

Young and beautiful was Wabun ; 
He it was who brought the morning, 
He it was whose silver arrows 
Chased the dark o'er hill and valley ; 
He it was whose cheeks were painted 
With the brightest streaks of crimson, 
And whose voice awoke the village, 
Called the deer, and called the hunter. 

Lonely in the sky was Wabun ; 
Though the birds sang gayly to him, 
Though the wild-flowers of the meadow 
Filled the air with odors for him ; 
Though the forests and the rivers 
Sang and shouted at his coming, 
Still his heart was sad within him, 
For he was alone in heaven. 

But one morning, gazing earthward, 
While the village still was sleeping, 
And the fog lay on the river, 



Like a ghost, that goes at sunrise, 
He beheld a maiden walking 
All alone upon a meadow, 
Gathering water-flags and rushes 
By a river in the meadow. 

Every morning, gazing earthward, 
Still the first thing he beheld there 
Was her blue eyes looking at him, 
Two blue lakes among the rushes. 
And he loved the lonely maiden, 
Who thus waited for his coming ; 
For they both were solitary, 
She on earth and he in heaven. 

And he wooed her with caresses, 
Wooed her with his smile of sunshine, 
With his flattering words he wooed her, 
With his sighing and his singing, 
Gentlest whispers in the branches, 
Softest music, sweetest odors, 
Till he drew her to his bosom, 
Folded in his robes of crimson, 
Till into a star he changed her, 
Trembling still upon his bosom ; 
And forever in the heavens 
They are seen together walking, 
Wabun and the Wabun- Annung, 
Wabun and the Star of Morning. 

But the fierce Kabibonokka 
Had his dwelling among icebergs, 
In the everlasting snow-drifts, 
In the kingdom of Wabasso, 
In the land of the White Rabbit. 
He it was whose hand in Autumn 
Painted all the trees with scarlet, 
Stained the leaves with red and yellow J 
He it was who sent the snow-flakes, 
Sifting, hissing through the forest, 
Froze the ponds, the lakes, the rivers, 
Drove the loon and sea-gull southward, 
Drove the cormorant and curlew 
To their nests of sedge and sea-tang 
In the realms of Shawondasee. 

Once the fierce Kabibonokka 
Issued from his lodge of snow-drifts, 
From his home among the icebergs, 
And his hair, with snow besprinkled, 
Streamed behind him like a river, 
Like a black and wintry river, 
As he howled and hurried southward, 
Over frozen lakes and moorlands. 

There among the reeds and rushes 
Found he Shingebis, the diver, 
Trailing strings of fish behind him, 
O'er the frozen fens and moorlands, 
Lingering still among the moorlands, 



n8 



THE SONG OF HIAWATHA 



Though his tribe had long departed 
To the land of Shawondasee. 

Cried the fierce Kabibonokka, 
" Who is this that dares to brave me ? 
Dares to stay in my dominions, 
When the Wawa has departed, 
When the wild-goose has gone southward, 
And the heron, the Shuh-sbuh-gah, 
Long ago departed southward ? 
I will go into his wigwam, 
I will put his smouldering fire out ! " 

And at night Kabibonokka 
To the lodge came wild and wailing, 
Heaped the snow in drifts about it, 
Shouted down into the smoke-flue, 
Shook the lodge-poles in his fury, 
Flapped the curtain of the door-way. 
Shingebis, the diver, feared not, 
Shingebis, the diver, cared not ; 
Four great logs had he for firewood, 
One for each moon of the winter, 
And for food the fishes served him. 
By his blazing fire he sat there, 
Warm and merry, eating, laughing, 
Singing, " O Kabibonokka, 
You are but my fellow-mortal ! ' ' 

Then Kabibonokka entered, 
And though Shingebis, the diver, 
Felt his presence by the coldness, 
Felt his icy breath upon him, 
Still he did not cease his singing, 
Still he did not leave his laughing, 
Only turned the log a little, 
Only made the fire burn brighter, 
Made the sparks fly up the smoke-flue. 

From Kabibonokka's forehead, 
From his snow-besprinkled tresses, 
Drops of sweat fell fast and heavy, 
Making dints upon the ashes, 
As along the eaves of lodges, 
As from drooping boughs of hemlock, 
Drips the melting snow in spring-time, 
Making hollows in the snow-drifts. 

Till at last he rose defeated, 
Could not bear the heat and laughter, 
Could not bear the merry singing, 
But rushed headlong through the door-way, 
Stamped upon the crusted snow-drifts, 
Stamped upon the lakes and rivers, 
Made the snow upon them harder, 
Made the ice upon them thicker, 
Challenged Shingebis, the diver, 
To come forth and wrestle with him, 
To come forth and wrestle naked 
On the frozen fens and moorlands. 



Forth went Shingebis, the diver, 
Wrestled all night with the North- Wind, 
Wrestled naked on the moorlands 
With the fierce Kabibonokka, 
Till his panting breath grew fainter, 
Till his frozen grasp grew feebler, 
Till he reeled and staggered backward, 
And retreated, baffled, beaten, 
To the kingdom of Wabasso, 
To the land of the White Rabbit, 
Hearing still the gusty laughter, 
Hearing Shingebis, the diver, 
Singing, "O Kabibonokka, 
You are but my fellow-mortal ! " 

Shawondasee, fat and lazy, 
Had his dwelling far to southward, 
In the drowsy, dreamy sunshine, 
In the never-ending Summer. 
He it was who sent the wood-birds, 
Sent the robin, the Opechee, 
Sent the bluebird, the Owaissa, 
Sent the Shawshaw, sent the swallow, 
Sent the wild-goose, Wawa, northward, 
Sent the melons and tobacco, 
And the grapes in purple clusters. 

From his pipe the smoke ascending 
Filled the sky with haze and vapor, 
Filled the air with dreamy softness, 
Gave a twinkle to the water, 
Touched the rugged hills with smoothness 
Brought the tender Indian Summer 
To the melancholy north-land, 
In the dreary Moon of Snow-shoes. 

Listless, careless Shawondasee ! 
In his life he had one shadow, 
In his heart one sorrow had he. 
Once, as he was gazing northward, 
Far away upon a prairie 
He beheld a maiden standing, 
Saw a tall and slender maiden 
All alone upon a prairie ; 
Brightest green were all her garments^ 
And her hair was like the sunshine. 

Day by day he gazed upon her, 
Day by day he sighed with passion, 
Day by day his heart within him 
Grew more hot with love and longing 
For the maid with yellow tresses. 
But he was too fat and lazy 
To bestir himself and woo her. 
Yes, too indolent and easy 
To pursue her and persuade her ; 
So he only gazed upon her, 
Only sat and sighed with passion 
For the maiden of the prairie. 



THE SONG OF HIAWATHA 



119 



Till one morning, looking northward, 
He beheld her yellow tresses 
Changed and covered o'er with whiteness, 
Covered as with whitest snow-flakes. 
" Ah ! my brother from the North-land, 
From the kingdom of Wabasso, 
P'rom the land of the White Rabbit ! 
You have stolen the maiden from me, 
You have laid your hand upon her, 
You have wooed and won my maiden, 
With your stories of the North-land ! " 

Thus the wretched Shawondasee 
Breathed into the air his sorrow ; 
And the South- Wind o'er the prairie 
Wandered warm with sighs of passion, 
With the sighs of Shawondasee, 
Till the air seemed full of snow-flakes, 
Full of thistle-down the prairie, 
And the maid with hair like sunshine 
Vanished from his sight forever ; 
Never more did Shawondasee 
See the maid with yellow tresses ! 

Poor, deluded Shawondasee ! 
'T was no woman that you gazed at, 
'T was no maiden that you sighed for, 
'T was the prairie dandelion 
That through all the dreamy Summer 
You had gazed at with such longing, 
You had sighed for with such passion, 
And had puffed away forever, 
Blown into the air with sighing. 
Ah ! deluded Shawondasee ! 

Thus the Four Winds were divided ; 
Thus the sons of Mudjekeewis 
Had their stations in the heavens, 
At the corners of the heavens ; 
For himself the West-Wind only 
Kept the mighty Mudjekeewis. 



Ill 



HIAWATHA'S CHILDHOOD 

Downward through the evening twilight, 

In the days that are forgotten, 

In the unremembered ages, 

From the full moon fell Nokomis, 

Fell the beautiful Nokomis, 

She a wife, but not a mother. 

She was sporting with her women, 
Swinging in a swing of grape-vines, 
When her rival the rejected, 
Full of jealousy and hatred, 
Cut the leafy swing asunder,. 



Cut in twain the twisted grape-vines, 

And Nokomis fell affrighted 

Downward through the evening twilight. 

On the Muskoday, the meadow, 

On the prairie full of blossoms. 

" See ! a star falls ! " said the people ; 

" From the sky a star is falling ! " 

There among the ferns and mosses, 
There among the prairie lilies, 
On the Muskoday, the meadow, 
In the moonlight and the starlight, 
Fair Nokomis bore a daughter. 
And she called her name Wenonah, 
As the first-born of her daughters. 
And the daughter of Nokomis 
Grew up like the prairie lilies, 
Grew a tall and slender maiden, 
With the beauty of the moonlight, 
With the beauty of the starlight. 

And Nokomis warned her often, 
Saying oft, and oft repeating, 
" Oh, beware of Mudjekeewis, 
Of the West-Wind, Mudjekeewis ; 
Listen not to what he tells you ; 
Lie not down upon the meadow, 
Stoop not down among the lilies, 
Lest the West-Wind come and harm 
you ! " 

But she heeded not the warning, 
Heeded not those words of wisdom, 
And the West-Wind came at evening, 
Walking lightly o'er the prairie, 
Whispering to the leaves and blossoms, 
Bending low the flowers and grasses, 
Found the beautiful Wenonah, 
Lying there among the lilies, 
Wooed her with his words of sweetness, 
Wooed her with his soft caresses, 
Till she bore a son in sorrow, 
Bore a son of love and sorrow. 

Thus was born my Hiawatha, 
Thus was born the child of wonder ; 
But the daughter of Nokomis, 
Hiawatha's gentle mother, 
In her anguish died deserted 
By the West-W T ind, false and faithless, 
By the heartless Mudjekeewis. 

For her daughter long and loudly 
Wailed and wept the sad Nokomis ; 
" Oh that I were dead ! " she murmured, « 
" Oh that I were dead, as thou art ! 
No more work, and no more weepings 
Wahonowin ! Wahonowin ! " 

By the shores of Gitche Gumee, 
By the shining Big-Sea- Water, 



THE SONG OF HIAWATHA 



Stood the wigwam of Nokomis, 
Daughter of the Moon, Nokomis. 
Dark behind it rose the forest, 
Rose the black and gloomy pine-trees, 
Rose the firs with cones upon them ; 
Bright before it beat the water, 
Beat the clear and sunny water, 
Beat the shining Big-Sea-Water. 

There the wrinkled old Nokomis 
Nursed the little Hiawatha, 
Rocked him in his linden cradle, 
Bedded soft in moss and rushes, 
Safely bound with reindeer sinews ; 
Stilled his fretful wail by saying, 
* Hush ! the Naked Bear will hear thee ! " 
Lulled him into slumber, singing, 
li Ewa-yea ! my little owlet ! 
Who is this, that lights the wigwam ? 
With his great eyes lights the wigwam ? 
Ewa-yea ! my little owlet ! " 

Many things Nokomis taught him 
Of the stars that shine in heaven ; 
Showed him Ishkoodah, the comet, 
Ishkoodah, with fiery tresses ; 
Showed the Death-Dance of the spirits, 
Warriors with their plumes and war-clubs, 
Flaring far away to northward 
In the frosty nights of Winter ; 
Showed the broad white road in heaven, 
Pathway of the ghosts, the shadows, 
Running straight across the heavens, 
Crowded with the ghosts, the shadows. 

At the door on summer evenings 
Sat the little Hiawatha ; 
Heard the whispering of the pine-trees, 
Heard the lapping of the waters, 
Sounds of music, words of wonder ; 
" Minne-wawa ! " said the pine-trees, 
" Mudway-aushka ! " said the water. 

Saw the fire-fly, Wah-wah-taysee, 
Flitting through the dusk of evening, 
With the twinkle of its candle 
Lighting up the brakes and bushes, 
And he sang the song of children, 
Sang the song Nokomis taught him : 
" Wah-wah-taysee, little fire-fly, 
Little, flitting, white-fire insect, 
Little, dancing, white-fire creature, 
Light me with your little candle, 
Ere upon my bed I lay me, 
Ere in sleep I close my eyelids ! " 

Saw the moon rise from the water 
Rippling, rounding from the water, 
Saw the flecks and shadows on it, 
Whispered, " What is that, Nokomis ? " 



And the good Nokomis answered : 

" Once a warrior, very angry, 

Seized his grandmother, and threw her 

Up into the sky at midnight ; 

Right against the moon he threw her ; 

'Tis her body that you see there." 

Saw the rainbow in the heaven, 
In the eastern sky, the rainbow, 
Whispered, " What is that, Nokomis ? ,? 
And the good Nokomis answered : 
" 'T is the heaven of flowers you see there 
All the wild-flowers of the forest, 
All the lilies of the prairie, 
When on earth they fade and perish, 
Blossom in that heaven above us." 

When he heard the owls at midnight, 
Hooting, laughing in the forest, 
" What is that ? " he cried in terror, 
" What is that," he said, " Nokomis ? " 
And the good Nokomis answered : 
" That is but the owl and owlet, 
Talking in their native language, 
Talking, scolding at each other." 

Then the little Hiawatha 
Learned of every bird its language, 
Learned their names and all their secrets, 
How they built their nests in Summer, 
Where they hid themselves in Winter, 
Talked with them whene'er he met them, 
Called them " Hiawatha's Chickens." 

Of all beasts he learned the language, 
Learned their names and all their secrets, 
How the beavers built their lodges, 
Where the squirrels hid their acorns, 
How the reindeer ran so swiftly, 
Why the rabbit was so timid, 
Talked with them whene'er he met them, 
Called them "Hiawatha's Brothers." 

Then lagoo, the great boaster, 
He the marvellous story-teller, 
He the traveller and the talker, 
He the friend of old Nokomis, 
Made a bow for Hiawatha ; 
From a branch of ash he made it, 
From an oak-bough made the arrows, 
Tipped with flint, and winged with feathers. 
And the cord he made of deer-skin. 

Then he said to Hiawatha : 
" Go, my son, into the forest, 
Where the red deer herd together, 
Kill for us a famous roebuck, 
Kill for us a deer with antlers ! " 

Forth into the forest straightway 
All alone walked Hiawatha 
Proudly, with his bow and arrows ; 



THE SONG OF HIAWATHA 



121 



And the birds sang round him, o'er him, 
" Do not shoot us, Hiawatha ! " 
Sang the robin, the Opechee, 
Sang the bluebird, the Ovvaissa, 
" Do not shoot us, Hiawatha ! " 

Up the oak-tree, close beside him, 
Sprang the squirrel, Adjidaumo, 
In and out among the branches, 
Coughed and chattered from the oak-tree, 
Laughed, and said between his laughing, 
" Do not shoot me, Hiawatha ! " 

And the rabbit from his pathway 
Leaped aside, and at a distance 
Sat erect upon his haunches, 
Half in fear and half in frolic, 
Saying to the little hunter, 
" Do not shoot me, Hiawatha ! " 

But he heeded not, nor heard them, 
For his thoughts were with the red deer ; 
On their tracks his eyes were fastened, 
Leading downward to the river, 
To the ford across the river, 
And as one in slumber walked he. 

Hidden in the alder-bushes, 
There he waited till the deer came, 
Till he saw two antlers lifted, 
Saw two eyes look from the thicket, 
Saw two nostrils point to windward, 
And a deer came down the pathway, 
Flecked with leafy light and shadow. 
And his heart within him fluttered, 
Trembled like the leaves above him, 
Like the birch-leaf palpitated, 
As the deer came down the pathway. 

Then, upon one knee uprising, 
Hiawatha aimed an arrow ; 
Scarce a twig moved with his motion, 
Scarce a leaf was stirred or rustled, 
But the wary roebuck started, 
Stamped with all his hoofs together, 
Listened with one foot uplifted, 
Leaped as if to meet the arrow ; 
Ah ! the singing, fatal arrow, 
Like a wasp it buzzed and stung him ! 

Dead he lay there in the forest, 
By the ford across the river ; 
Beat his timid heart no longer, 
But the heart of Hiawatha 
Throbbed and shouted and exulted, 
As he bore the red deer homeward, 
And Iagoo and Nokomis 
Hailed his coming with applauses. 

From the red deer's hide Nokomis 
Made a cloak for Hiawatha, 
From the red deer's flesh Nokomis 



Made a banquet to his honor. 
All the village came and feasted, 
All the guests praised Hiawatha, 
Called him Strong-Heart, Soan-ge-taha ! 
Called him Loon-Heart, Mahn-go-taysee 1 



IV 



HIAWATHA AND MUDJEKEEWIS 

Out of childhood into manhood 
Now had grown my Hiawatha, 
Skilled in all the craft of hunters, 
Learned in all the lore of old men, 
In all youthful sports and pastimes.. 
In all manly arts and labors. 

Swift of foot was Hiawatha ; 
He could shoot an arrow from him, 
And run forward with such fleetness, 
That the arrow fell behind him ! 
Strong of arm was Hiawatha ; 
He could shoot ten arrows upward, 
Shoot them with such strength and swift 

ness, 
That the tenth had left the bow-string 
Ere the first to eartb had fallen ! 

He had mittens, Minjekahwun, 
Magic mittens made of deer-skin ; 
When upon his hands he wore them, 
He could smite the rocks asunder, 
He could grind them into powder. 
He had moccasins enchanted, 
Magic moccasins of deer-skin ; 
When he bound them round his ankles, 
When upon his feet he tied them, 
At each stride a mile he measured ! 

Much he questioned old Nokomis 
Of his father Mudjekeewis ; 
Learned from her the fatal secret 
Of the beauty of his mother, 
Of the falsehood of his father ; 
And his heart was hot within him, 
Like a living coal his heart was. 

Then he said to old Nokomis, 
" I will go to Mudjekeewis, 
See how fares it with my father, 
At the doorways of the West- Wind, 
At the portals of the Sunset ! " 

From his lodge went Hiawatha, 
Dressed for travel, armed for hunting ; 
Dressed in deer-skin shirt and leggings, 
Richly wrought with quills and wampum ; 
On his head his eagle-feathers, 
Round his waist his belt of wampum, 



122 



THE SONG OF HIAWATHA 



In his hand his bow of ash-wood, 

Strung with sinews of the reindeer ; 

In his quiver oaken arrows, 

Tipped with jasper, winged with feathers 

With his mittens, Minjekahwun, 

With his moccasins enchanted. 

Warning said the old Nokomis, 
" Go not forth, O Hiawatha ! 
To the kingdom of the West- Wind, 
To the realms of Mudjekeewis, 
Lest he harm you with his magic, 
Lest he kill you with his cunning ! " 

But the fearless Hiawatha 
Heeded not her woman's warning ; 
Forth he strode into the forest, 
At each stride a mile he measured ; 
Lurid seemed the sky above him, 
Lurid seemed the earth beneath him, 
Hot and close the air around him, 
Filled with smoke and fiery vapors, 
As of burning woods and prairies, 
For his heart was hot within him, 
Like a living coal his heart was. 

So he journeyed westward, westward, 
Left the fleetest deer behind him, 
Left the antelope and bison ; 
Crossed the rushing Esconaba, 
Crossed the mighty Mississippi, 
Passed the Mountains of the Prairie, 
Passed the land of Crows and Foxes, 
Passed the dwellings of the Blackfeet, 
Came unto the Rocky Mountains, 
To the kingdom of the West- Wind, 
Where upon the gusty summits 
Sat the ancient Mudjekeewis, 
Ruler of the winds of heaven. 

Filled with awe was Hiawatha 
At the aspect of his father. 
On the air about him wildly 
Tossed and streamed his cloudy tresses, 
Gleamed like drifting snow his tresses, 
Glared like Ishkoodah, the comet, 
Like the star with fiery tresses. 

Filled with joy was Mudjekeewis 
When he looked on Hiawatha, 
Saw his youth rise up before him 
In the face of Hiawatha, 
Saw the beauty of Wenonah 
From the grave rise up before him. 

" Welcome ! " said he, " Hiawatha, 
To the kingdom of the West-Wind ! 
Long have I been waiting for you ! 
Youth is lovely, age is lonely, 
Youth is fiery, age is frosty ; 
You bring back the days departed, 



You bring back my youth of passion, 
And the beautiful Wenonah ! " 

Many days they talked together, 
Questioned, listened, waited, answered $ 
Much the mighty Mudjekeewis 
Boasted of his ancient prowess, 
Of his perilous adventures, 
His indomitable courage, 
His invulnerable body. 

Patiently sat Hiawatha, 
Listening to his father's boasting ; 
With a smile he sat and listened, 
Uttered neither threat nor menace, 
Neither word nor look betrayed him, 
But his heart was hot within him, 
Like a living coal his heart was. 

Then he said, " O Mudjekeewis, 
Is there nothing that can harm you ? 
Nothing that you are afraid of ? " 
And the mighty Mudjekeewis, 
Grand and gracious in his boasting, 
Answered, saying, " There is nothing, 
Nothing but the black rock yonder, 
Nothing but the fatal Wawbeek ! " 

And he looked at Hiawatha 
With a wise look and benignant, 
With a countenance paternal, 
Looked with pride upon the beauty 
Of his tall and graceful figure, 
Saying, " O my Hiawatha ! 
Is there anything can harm you ? 
Anything you are afraid of ? " 

But the wary Hiawatha 
Paused awhile, as if uncertain, 
Held his peace, as if resolving, 
And then answered, " There is nothing, 
Nothing but the bulrush yonder, 
Nothing but the great Apukwa ! " 

And as Mudjekeewis, rising, 
Stretched his hand to pluck the bulrush, 
Hiawatha cried in terror, 
Cried in well-dissembled terror, 
" Kago ! kago ! do not touch it ! " 
" Ah, kaween ! " said Mudjekeewis, 
" No indeed, I will not touch it ! " 

Then they talked of other matters ; 
First of Hiawatha's brothers, 
First of Wabun, of the East- Wind, 
Of the South- Wind, Shawondasee, 
Of the North, Kabibonokka ; 
Then of Hiawatha's mother, 
Of the beautiful Wenonah, 
Of her birth upon the meadow, 
Of her death, as old Nokomis 
Had remembered and related. 



THE SONG OF HIAWATHA 



123 



And he cried, " O Mudjekeewis, 
It was you who killed Wenonah, 
Took her young life and her beauty, 
Broke the Lily of the Prairie, 
Trampled it beneath your footsteps ; 
You confess it ! you confess it ! " 
And the mighty Mudjekeewis 
Tossed upon the wind his tresses, 
Bowed his hoary head in anguish, 
With a silent nod assented. 

Then up started Hiawatha, 
And with threatening look and gesture 
Laid his hand upon the black rock, 
On the fatal Wawbeek laid it, 
With his mittens, Minjekahwun, 
Rent the jutting crag asunder, 
Smote and crushed it into fragments, 
Hurled them madly at his father, 
The remorseful Mudjekeewis, 
For his heart was hot within him, 
Like a living coal his heart was. 

But the ruler of the West- Wind 
Blew the fragments backward from him, 
With the breathing of his nostrils, 
With the tempest of his anger, 
Blew them back at his assailant ; 
Seized the bulrush, the Apukwa, 
Dragged it with its roots and fibres 
From the margin of the meadow, 
From its ooze the giant bulrush ; 
Long and loud laughed Hiawatha ! 

Then began the deadly conflict, 
Hand to hand among the mountains ; 
From his eyry screamed the eagle, 
The Keneu, the great war-eagle, 
Sat upon the crags around them, 
Wheeling flapped his wings above them. 

Like a tall tree in the tempest 
Bent and lashed the giant bulrush ; 
And in masses huge and heavy 
Crashing fell the fatal Wawbeek ; 
Till the earth shook with the tumult 
And confusion of the battle, 
And the air was full of shoutings, 
And the thunder of the mountains, 
Starting, answered, " Baim-wawa ! " 

Back retreated Mudjekeewis, 
Rushing westward o'er the mountains, 
Stumbling westward down the mountains, 
Three whole days retreated fighting, 
Still pursued by Hiawatha 
To the doorways of the West-Wind, 
To the portals of the Sunset, 
To the earth's remotest border, 
Where into the empty spaces 



Sinks the sun, as a flamingo 
Drops into her nest at nightfall 
In the melancholy marshes. 

" Hold ! " at length cried Mudjekeewis, 
" Hold, my son, my Hiawatha ! 
'T is impossible to kill me, 
For you cannot kill the immortal. 
I have put you to this trial, 
But to know and prove your courage ; 
Now receive the prize of valor ! 

" Go back to your home and people, 
Live among them, toil among them, 
Cleanse the earth from all that harms it, 
Clear the fishing-grounds and rivers, 
Slay all monsters and magicians, 
All the Wendigoes, the giants, 
All the serpents, the Kenabeeks, 
As I slew the Mishe-Mokwa, 
Slew the Great Bear of the mountains. 

" And at last when Death draws near you, 
When the awful eyes of Pauguk 
Glare upon you in the darkness, 
I will share my kingdom with you, 
Ruler shall you be thenceforward 
Of the Northwest-Wind, Keewaydin, 
Of the home-wind, the Keewaydin." 

Thus was fought that famous battle 
In the dreadful days of Shah-shah, 
In the days long since departed, 
In the kingdom of the West-Wind. 
Still the hunter sees its traces 
Scattered far o'er hill and valley ; 
Sees the giant bulrush growing 
By the ponds and water-courses, 
Sees the masses of the Wawbeek 
Lying still in every valley. 

Homeward now went Hiawatha ; 
Pleasant was the landscape round him, 
Pleasant was the air above him, . 
For the bitterness of anger 
Had departed wholly from him, 
From his brain the thought of vengeance. 
From his heart the burning fever. 

Only once his pace he slackened, 
Only once he paused or halted, 
Paused to purchase heads of arrows 
Of the ancient Arrow-maker, 
In the land of the Dacotahs, 
Where the Falls of Minnehaha 
Flash and gleam among the oak-trees, 
Laugh and leap into the valley. 

There the ancient Arrow-maker 
Made his arrow-heads of sandstone, 
Arrow-heads of chalcedony, 
Arrow-heads of flint and jasper, 



124 



THE SONG OF HIAWATHA 



Smoothed and sharpened at the edges, 
Hard and polished, keen and costly. 

With him dwelt his dark-eyed daughter, 
Wayward as the Minnehaha, 
With her moods of shade and sunshine, 
fiyes that smiled and frowned alternate, 
Feet as rapid as the river, 
Tresses flowing like the water, 
And as musical a laughter : 
And he named her from the river, 
From the water-fall he named her, 
Minnehaha, Laughing Water. 

Was it then for heads of arrows, 
Arrow-heads of chalcedony, 
Arrow-heads of flint and jasper, 
That my Hiawatha halted 
In the land of the Dacotahs ? 

Was it not to see the maiden, 
See the face of Laughing Water 
Peeping from behind the curtain, 
Hear the rustling of her garments 
From behind the waving curtain, 
As one sees the Minnehaha 
Gleaming, glancing through the branches, 
As one hears the Laughing Water 
From behind its screen of branches ? 

Who shall say what thoughts and visions 
Fill the fiery brains of young men ? 
Who shall say what dreams of beauty 
Filled the heart of Hiawatha ? 
All he told to old Nokomis, 
When he reached the lodge at sunset, 
Was the meeting with his father, 
Was his fight with Mudjekeewis ; 
Not a word he said of arrows, 
Not a word of Laughing Water. 



V 



HIAWATHA'S FASTING 

You shall hear how Hiawatha 
Prayed and fasted in the forest, 
Not for greater skill in hunting, 
Not for greater craft in fishing, 
Not for triumphs in the battle, 
And renown among the warriors, 
But for profit of the people, 
For advantage of the nations. 

First he built a lodge for fasting, 
Built a wigwam in the forest, 
By the shining Big-Sea- Water, 
In the blithe and pleasant Spring-time, 
In the Moon of Leaves he built it. 



And, with dreams and visions many, 
Seven whole days and nights he fasted. 

On the first day of his fasting 
Through the leafy woods he wandered j 
Saw the deer start from the thicket, 
Saw the rabbit in his burrow, 
Heard the pheasant, Bena, drumming, 
Heard the squirrel, Adjidaumo, 
Rattling in his hoard of acorns, 
Saw the pigeon, the Omeme, 
Building nests among the pine-trees, 
And in Hocks the wild-goose, Wawa, 
Flying to the fen-lands northward, 
Whirring, wailing far above him. 
" Master of Life ! " he cried, desponding, 
" Must our lives depend on these things ? " 

On the next day of his fasting 
By the river's brink he wandered, 
Through the Muskoday, the meadow, 
Saw the wild rice, Mahnomonee, 
Saw the blueberry, Meenahga, 
And the strawberry, Odahmin, 
And the gooseberry, Shahbomin, 
And the grape-vine, the Bemahgut, 
Trailing o'er the alder-branches, 
Filling all the air with fragrance ! 
" Master of Life ! " he cried, desponding, 
" Must our lives depend on these things ? " 

On the third day of his fasting 
By the lake he sat and pondered, 
By the still, transparent water ; 
Saw the sturgeon, Nahma, leaping, 
Scattering drops like beads of wampum, 
Saw the yellow perch, the Sahwa, 
Like a sunbeam in the water, 
Saw the pike, the Maskenozha, 
And the herring, Okahahwis, 
And the Shawgashee, the craw-fish ! 
" Master of Life ! " he cried, desponding, 
" Must our lives depend on these things ? * 

On the fourth day of his fasting 
In his lodge he lay exhausted ; 
From his couch of leaves and branches 
Gazing with half-open eyelids, 
Full of shadowy dreams and visions, 
On the dizzy, swimming landscape, 
On the gleaming of the water, 
On the splendor of the sunset. 

And he saw a youth approaching, 
Dressed in garments green and yellow, 
Coming through the purple twilight, 
Through the splendor of the sunset ; 
Plumes of green bent o'er his forehead* 
And his hair was soft and golden. 

Standing at the open doorway, 



THE SONG OF HIAWATHA 



125 



Long be looked at Hiawatha, 
Looked with pity and compassion 
On his wasted form and features, 
And, in accents like the sighing 
Of the South- Wind in the tree-tops, 
Said he, " O my Hiawatha ! 
All your prayers are heard in heaven, 
For you pray not like the others ; 
Not for greater skill in hunting, 
Not for greater craft in fishing, 
Not for triumph in the battle, 
Nor renown among the warriors, 
But for profit of the people, 
For advantage of the nations. 

" From the Master of Life descending, 
I, the friend of man, Mondamin, 
Come to warn you and instruct you, 
How by struggle and by labor 
You shall gain what you have prayed for. 
Rise up from your bed of branches, 
Rise, O youth, and wrestle with me ! " 

Faint with famine, Hiawatha 
Started from his bed of branches, 
From the twilight of his wigwam. 
Forth into the flush of sunset 
Came, and wrestled with Mondamin ; 
At his touch he felt new courage 
Throbbing in his brain and bosom, 
Felt new life and hope and vigor 
Run through every nerve and fibre. 

So they wrestled there together 
In the glory of the sunset, 
And the more they strove and struggled, 
Stronger still grew Hiawatha ; 
Till the darkness fell around them, 
And the heron, the Shuh-shuh-gah, 
From her nest among the pine-trees, 
Gave a cry of lamentation, 
Gave a scream of pain and famine. 

" 'T is enough ! " then said Mondamin, 
Smiling upon Hiawatha, 
" But to-morrow, when the sun sets, 
I will come again to try you." 
And he vanished, and was seen not ; 
Whether sinking as the rain sinks, 
Whether rising as the mists rise, 
Hiawatha saw not, knew not, 
Only saw that he had vanished, 
Leaving him alone and fainting, 
With the misty lake below him, 
And the reeling stars above him. 

On the morrow and the next day, 
When the sun through heaven descending, 
Like a red and burning cinder 
From the hearth of the Great Spirit, 



Fell into the western waters, 
Came Mondamin for the trial, 
For the strife with Hiawatha ; 
Came as silent as the dew comes, 
From the empty air appearing, 
Into empty air returning, 
Taking shape when earth it touches, 
But invisible to all men 
In its coming and its going. 

Thrice they wrestled there together 
In the glory of the sunset, 
Till the darkness fell around them, 
Till the heron, the Shuh-shuh-gah, 
From her nest among the pine-trees, 
Uttered her loud cry of famine, 
And Mondamin paused to listen. 

Tall and beautiful he stood there, 
In his garments green and yellow ; 
To and fro his plumes above him 
Waved and nodded with his breathing, 
And the sweat of the encounter 
Stood like drops of dew upon him. 

And he cried, " O Hiawatha ! 
Bravely have you wrestled with me, 
Thrice have wrestled stoutly with me, 
And the Master of Life, who sees us, 
He will give to you the triumph ! " 

Then he smiled, and said : " To-morrow 
Is the last day of your conflict, 
Is the last day of your fasting. 
You will conquer and overcome me ; 
Make a bed for me to lie in, 
Where the rain may fall upon me, 
Where the sun may come and warm me ; 
Strip these garments, green and yellow, 
Strip this nodding plumage from me, 
Lay me in the earth, and make it 
Soft and loose and light above me. 

" Let no hand disturb my slumber, 
Let no weed nor worm molest me, 
Let not Kahgahgee, the raven, 
Come to haunt me and molest me, 
Only come yourself to watch me, 
Till I wake, and start, and quicken, 
Till I leap into the sunshine." 

And thus saying, he departed ; 
Peacefully slept Hiawatha, 
But he heard the W r awonaissa, 
Heard the whippoorwill complaining, 
Perched upon his lonely wigwam ; 
Heard the rushing Sebowisha, 
Heard the rivulet rippling near him, 
Talking to the darksome forest ; 
Heard the sighing of the branches, 
As they lifted and subsided 



126 



THE SONG OF HIAWATHA 



At the passing of the night-wind, 
Heard them, as one hears in slumber 
Far-off murmurs, dreamy whispers : 
Peacefully slept Hiawatha. 

On the morrow came Nokoniis, 
On the seventh day of his fasting, 
Came with food for Hiawatha, 
Came imploring and bewailing, 
Lest his hunger should o'ercome him, 
Lest his fasting should be fatal. 

But he tasted not, and touched not, 
Only said to her, " Nokomis, 
Wait until the sun is setting, 
Till the darkness falls around us, 
Till the heron, the Shuh-shuh-gah, 
Crying from the desolate marshes, 
Tells us that the day is ended." 

Homeward weeping went Nokomis, 
Sorrowing for her Hiawatha, 
Fearing lest his strength should fail him, 
Lest his fasting should be fatal. 
He meanwhile sat weary waiting 
For the coming of Mondamin, 
Till the shadows, pointing eastward, 
Lengthened over field and forest, 
Till the sun dropped from the heaven, 
Floating on the waters westward, 
As a red leaf in the Autumn 
Falls and floats upon the water, 
Falls and sinks into its bosom. 

And behold ! the young Mondamin, 
With his soft and shining tresses, 
With his garments green and yellow, 
With his long and glossy plumage, 
Stood and beckoned at the doorway. 
And as one in slumber walking, 
Pale and haggard, but undaunted, 
From the wigwam Hiawatha 
Came and wrestled with Mondamin. 

Round about him spun the landscape, 
Sky and forest reeled together, 
And his strong heart leaped within him, 
As the sturgeon leaps and struggles 
In a net to break its meshes. 
Like a ring of fire around him 
Blazed and flared the red horizon, 
And a hundred suns seemed looking 
At the combat of the wrestlers. 

Suddenly upon the greensward 
All alone stood Hiawatha, 
Panting with his wild exertion, 
Palpitating with the struggle ; 
And before him breathless, lifeless, 
Lay the youth, with hair dishevelled, 
Plumage torn, and garments tattered, 



Dead he lay there in the sunset. 

And victorious Hiawatha 
Made the grave as he commanded, 
Stripped the garments from Mondamin, 
Stripped his tattered plumage from him, 
Laid him in the earth, and made it 
Soft and loose and light above him ; 
And the heron, the Shuh-shuh-gah, 
From the melancholy moorlands, 
Gave a cry of lamentation, 
Gave a cry of pain and anguish ! 

Homeward then went Hiawatha 
To the lodge of old Nokomis, 
And the seven days of his fasting 
Were accomplished and completed. 
But the place was not forgotten 
Where he wrestled with Mondamin ; 
Nor forgotten nor neglected 
Was the grave where lay Mondamin, 
Sleeping in the rain and sunshine, 
Where his scattered plumes and garments 
Faded in the rain and sunshine. 

Day by day did Hiawatha 
Go to wait and watch beside it ; 
Kept the dark mould soft above it, 
Kept it clean from weeds and insects, 
Drove away, with scoffs and shoutings, 
Kahgahgee, the king of ravens. 

Till at length a small green feather 
From the earth shot slowly upward, 
Then another and another, 
And before the Summer ended 
Stood the maize in all its beauty, 
With its shining robes about it, 
And its long, soft, yellow tresses ; 
And in rapture Hiawatha 
Cried aloud, " It is Mondamin ! 
Yes, the friend of man, Mondamin I ' 9 

Then he called to old Nokomis 
And Iagoo, the great boaster, 
Showed them where the maize was growing, 
Told them of his wondrous vision, 
Of his wrestling and his triumph, 
Of this new gift to the nations, 
Which should be their food forever. 

And still later, when the Autumn 
Changed the long, green leaves to yellow, 
And the soft and juicy kernels 
Grew like wampum hard and yellow, 
Then the ripened ears he gathered, 
Stripped the withered husks from off them*. 
As he once had stripped the wrestler, 
Gave the first Feast of Mondamin, 
And made known unto the people 
This new gift of the Great Spirit. 



THE SONG OF HIAWATHA 



127 



VI 

HIAWATHA'S FRIENDS 

Two good friends had Hiawatha, 

Singled out from all the others, 

Bound to him in closest union, 

And to whom he gave the right hand 

Of his heart, in joy and sorrow ; 

Chibiabos, the musician, 

And the very strong man, Kwasind. 

Straight between them ran the path- 
way, 
Never grew the grass upon it ; 
Singing birds, that utter falsehoods, 
Story-tellers, mischief-makers, 
Found no eager ear to listen, 
Could not breed ill-will between them, 
For they kept each other's counsel, 
Spake with naked hearts together, 
Pondering much and much contriving 
How the tribes of men might prosper. 

Most beloved by Hiawatha 
Was the gentle Chibiabos, 
He the best of all musicians, 
He the sweetest of all singers. 
Beautiful and childlike was he, 
Brave as man is, soft as woman, 
Pliant as a wand of willow, 
Stately as a deer with antlers. 

When he sang, the village listened ; 
All the warriors gathered round him, 
All the women came to hear him ; 
Now he stirred their souls to passion, 
Now he melted them to pity. 

From the hollow reeds he fashioned 
Flutes so musical and mellow, 
That the brook, the Sebovvisha, 
Ceased to murmur in the woodland, 
That the wood-birds ceased from singing, 
And the squirrel, Adjidaumo, 
Ceased his chatter in the oak-tree, 
And the rabbit, the Wabasso, 
Sat upright to look and listen. 

Yes, the brook, the Sebovvisha, 
Pausing, said, " O Chibiabos, 
Teach my waves to flow in music, 
Softly as your words in singing ! " 

Yes, the bluebird, the Owaissa, 
Envious, said, " O Chibiabos, 
Teach me tones as wild and wayward, 
Teach me songs as full of frenzy ! " 

Yes, the robin, the Opechee, 
Joyous, said, " O Chibiabos, 



Teach me tones as sweet and tender, 
Teach me songs as full of gladness ! " 

And the whippoorwill, Wawonaissa, 
Sobbing, said, " O Chibiabos, 
Teach me tones as melancholy, 
Teach me songs as full of sadness ! " 

All the many sounds of nature 
Borrowed sweetness from his singing ; 
All the hearts of men were softened 
By the pathos of his music ; 
For he sang of peace and freedom, 
Sang of beauty, love, and longing ; 
Sang of death, and life undying 
In the Islands of the Blessed, 
In the kingdom of Ponemah, 
In the land of the Hereafter. 

Very dear to Hiawatha 
Was the gentle Chibiabos, 
He the best of all musicians, 
He the sweetest of all singers ; 
For his gentleness he loved him, 
And the magic of his singing. 

Dear, too, unto Hiawatha 
Was the very strong man, Kwasind, 
He the strongest of all mortals, 
He the mightiest among many ; 
For his very strength he loved him, 
For his strength allied to goodness. 

Idle in his youth was Kwasind, 
Very listless, dull, and dreamy, 
Never played with other children, 
Never fished and never hunted, 
Not like other children was he ; 
But they saw that much he fasted, 
Much his Manito entreated, 
Much besought his Guardian Spirit. 

" Lazy Kwasind ! " said his mother, 
" In my work you never help me ! 
In the Summer you are roaming 
Idly in the fields and forests ; 
In the Winter you are cowering 
O'er the firebrands in the wigwam ! 
In the coldest days of Winter 
I must break the ice for fishing ; 
With my nets you never help me ! 
At the door my nets are hanging, 
Dripping, freezing with the water ; 
Go and wring them, Yenadizze ! 
Go and dry them in the sunshine ! " 

Slowly, from the ashes, Kwasind 
Rose, but made no angry answer ; 
From the lodge went forth in silence, 
Took the nets, that hung together, 
Dripping, freezing at the doorway; 
Like a wisp of straw he wrung them, 



Z2S 



THE SONG OF HIAWATHA 



Like a wisp of straw he broke them, 
Could not wring them without breaking, 
Such the strength was in his fingers. 

" Lazy Kwasind ! " said his father, 
" In the hunt you never help me ; 
Every bow you touch is broken, 
Snapped asunder every arrow ; 
Yet come with me to the forest, 
You shall bring the hunting homeward." 

Down a narrow pass they wandered, 
Where a brooklet led them onward, 
Where the trail of deer and bison 
Marked the soft mud on the margin, 
Till they found all further passage 
Shut against them, barred securely 
By the trunks of trees uprooted, 
Lying lengthwise, lying crosswise, 
And forbidding further passage. 

" We must go back," said the old man, 
" O'er these logs we cannot clamber ; 
Not a woodchuck could get through them, 
Not a squirrel clamber o'er them ! " 
And straightway his pipe he lighted, 
And sat down to smoke and ponder. 
But before his pipe was finished, 
Lo ! the path was cleared before him ; 
All the trunks had Kwasind lifted, 
To the right hand, to the left hand, 
Shot the pine-trees swift as arrows, 
Hurled the cedars light as lances. 

" Lazy Kwasind ! " said the young men, 
As they sported in the meadow : 
" Why stand idly looking at us, 
Leaning on the rock behind you ? 
Come and wrestle with the others, 
Let us pitch the quoit together ! " 

Lazy Kwasind made no answer, 
To their challenge made no answer, 
Only rose, and slowly turning, 
Seized the huge rock in his fingers, 
Tore it from its deep foundation, 
Poised it in the air a moment, 
Pitched it sheer into the river, 
Sheer into the swift Pauwating, 
Where it still is seen in Summer. 

Once as down that foaming river, 
Down the rapids of Pauwating, 
Kwasind sailed with his companions, 
In the stream he saw a beaver, 
Saw Ahmeek, the King of Beavers, 
Struggling with the rushing currents, 
Rising, sinking in the water. 

Without speaking, without pausing, 
Kwasind leaped into the river, 
Plunged beneath the bubbling surface, 



Through the whirlpools chased the beave^ 
Followed him among the islands, 
Stayed so long beneath the water, 
That his terrified companions 
Cried, " Alas ! good-by to Kwasind ! 
We shall never more see Kwasind ! " 
But he reappeared triumphant, 
And upon his shining shoulders 
Brought the beaver, dead and drippings 
Brought the King of all the Beavers. 
And these two, as I have told you s 
Were the friends of Hiawatha, 
Chibiabos, the musician, 
And the very strong man, Kwasind. 
Long they lived in peace together, 
Spake with naked hearts together, 
Pondering much and much contriving 
How the tribes of men might prosper. 



VII 

HIAWATHA'S SAILING 

" Give me of your bark, O Birch-tree ! 
Of your yellow bark, O Birch-tree 1 
Growing by the rushing river, 
Tall and stately in the valley ! 
I a light canoe will build me, 
Build a swift Cheemaun for sailing, 
That shall float upon the river, 
Like a yellow leaf in Autumn, 
Like a yellow water-lily ! 

" Lay aside your cloak, O Birch-tree ! 
Lay aside your white-skin wrapper, 
For the Summer-time is coming, 
And the sun is warm in heaven, 
And you need no white-skin wrapper ! A 

Thus aloud cried Hiawatha 
In the solitary forest, 
By the rushing Taquamenaw, 
When the birds were singing gayly, 
In the Moon of Leaves were singing, 
And the sun, from sleep awaking, 
Started up snd said, " Behold me ! 
Gheezis, the great Sun, behold me S '* 

And the tree with all its branches 
Rustled in the breeze of morning, 
Saying, with a sigh of patience, 
" Take my cloak, O Hiawatha ! " 

With his knife the tree he girdled % 
Just beneath its lowest branches, 
Just above the roots, he cut it, 
Till the sap came oozing outward ; 
Down the trunk, from top to bottom, 



THE SONG OF HIAWATHA 



129 



Sheer he cleft the bark asunder, 
With a wooden wedge he raised it, 
Stripped it from the trunk unbroken. 

" Give me of your boughs, O Cedar ! 
Of your strong and pliant branches, 
My canoe to make more steady, 
Make more strong and firm beneath me ! " 

Through the summit of the Cedar 
Went a sound, a cry of horror, 
Went a murmur of resistance ; 
But it whispered, bending downward, 
" Take my boughs, O Hiawatha ! " 

Down he hewed the boughs of cedar, 
Shaped them straightway to a frame-work, 
Like two bows he formed and shaped 

them, 
Like two bended bows together. 

" Give me of your roots, O Tamarack ! 
Of your fibrous roots, O Larch-tree ! 
My canoe to bind together, 
So to bind the ends together 
That the water may not enter, 
That the river may not wet me ! " 

And the Larch, with all its fibres, 
Shivered in the air of morning, 
Touched his forehead with its tassels, 
Said, with one long sigh of sorrow, 
" Take them all, O Hiawatha ! " 

From the earth he tore the fibres, 
Tore the tough roots of the Larch-tree, 
Closely sewed the bark together, 
Bound it closely to the frame-work. 

" Give me of your balm, O Fir-tree ! 
Of your balsam and your resin, 
So to close the seams together 
That the water may not enter, 
That the river may not wet me ! " 

And the Fir-tree, tall and sombre, 
Sobbed through all its robes of darkness, 
Rattled like a shore with pebbles, 
Answered wailing, answered weeping, 
"'Take my balm, O Hiawatha ! " 

And he took the tears of balsam, 
Took the resin of the Fir-tree, 
Smeared therewith each seam and fissure, 
Made each crevice safe from water. 

" Give me of your quills, O Hedgehog ! 
All your quills, O Kagh, the Hedgehog ! 
I will make a necklace of them, 
Make a girdle for my beauty, 
And two stars to deck her bosom ! " 

From a hollow tree the Hedgehog 
With his sleepy eyes looked at him, 
Shot his shining quills, like arrows, 
Saying with a drowsy murmur, 



Through the tangle of his whiskers, 
" Take my quills, O Hiawatha ! " 

From the ground the quills he gathered, 
All the little shining arrows, 
Stained them red and blue and yellow, 
With the juice of roots and berries ; 
Into his canoe he wrought them, 
Round its waist a shining girdle, 
Round its bows a gleaming necklace, 
On its breast two stars resplendent. 

Thus the Birch Canoe was builded 
In the valley, by the river, 
In the bosom of the forest ; 
And the forest's life was in it, 
All its mystery and its magic, 
All the lightness of the birch-tree, 
All the toughness of the cedar, 
All the larch's supple sinews ; 
And it floated on the river 
Like a yellow leaf in Autumn, 
Like a yellow water-lily. 

Paddles none had Hiawatha, 
Paddles none he had or needed, 
For his thoughts as paddles served him, 
And his wishes served to guide him ; 
Swift or slow at will he glided, 
Veered to right or left at pleasure. 

Then he called aloud to Kwasind, 
To his friend, the strong man, Kwasind, 
Saying, " Help me clear this river 
Of its sunken logs and sand-bars." 

Straight into the river Kwasind 
Plunged as if he were an otter, 
Dived as if he were a beaver, 
Stood up to his waist in water. 
To his arm-pits in the river, 
Swam and shouted in the river, 
Tugged at sunken logs and branches, 
With his hands he scooped the sand-bars, 
With his feet the ooze and tangle. 

And thus sailed my Hiawatha 
Down the rushing Taquamenaw, 
Sailed through all its bends and windings, 
Sailed through all its deeps and shallows, 
While his friend, the strong man, Kwasindj 
Swam the deeps, the shallows waded. 

Up and down the river went they, 
In and out among its islands, 
Cleared its bed of root and sand-bar, 
Dragged the dead trees from its channel, 
Made its passage safe and certain, 
Made a pathway for the people, 
From its springs among the mountains, 
To the waters of Pauwating, 
To the bay of Taquamenaw. 



13° 



THE SONG OF HIAWATHA 



VIII 

HIAWATHA'S FISHING 

Forth upon the Gitche Gumee, 
On the shining Big-Sea-Water, 
With his fishing-line of cedar, 
Of the twisted bark of cedar, 
Forth to catch the sturgeon Nahrna, 
Mishe-Nahma, King of Fishes, 
In his birch canoe exulting 
All alone went Hiawatha. 

Through the clear, transparent water 
He could see the fishes swimming 
Far down in the depths below him ; 
See the yellow perch, the Sahwa, 
Like a sunbeam in the water, 
*>ee the Shawgashee, the craw-fish, 
Like a spider on the bottom, 
On the white and sandy bottom. 

At the stern sat Hiawatha, 
With his fishing-line of cedar ; 
In his plumes the breeze of morning 
Played as in the hemlock branches ; 
On the bows, with tail erected, 
Sat the squirrel, Adjidaumo ; 
[n his fur the breeze of morning 
Played as in the prairie grasses. 

On the white sand of the bottom 
Lay the monster Mishe-Nahma, 
Lay the sturgeon, King of Fishes ; 
Through his gills he breathed the water, 
With his fins he fanned and winnowed, 
With his tail he swept the sand-floor. 

There he lay in all his armor ; 
On each side a shield to guard him, 
Plates of bone upon his forehead, 
Down his sides and back and shoulders 
Plates of bone with spines projecting ! 
Painted was he with his war-paints, 
Stripes of yellow, red, and azure, 
Spots of brown and spots of sable ; 
And he lay there on the bottom, 
Fanning with his fins of purple, 
As above him Hiawatha 
In his birch canoe came sailing, 
With his fishing-line of cedar. 

" Take my bait," cried Hiawatha, 
Down into the depths beneath him, 
" Take my bait, O Sturgeon, Nahma ! 
Come up from below the water, 
Let us see which is the stronger ! " 
And he dropped his line of cedar 
Through the clear, transparent water, 



Waited vainly for an answer, 
Long sat waiting for an answer, 
And repeating loud and louder, 
" Take my bait, O King of Fishes ! n 

Quiet lay the sturgeon, Nahma, 
Fanning slowly in the water, 
Looking up at Hiawatha, 
Listening to his call and clamor, 
His unnecessary tumult, 
Till he wearied of the shouting ; 
And he said to the Kenozha, 
To the pike, the Maskenozha, 
" Take the bait of this rude fellow, 
Break the line of Hiawatha ! " 

In his fingers Hiawatha 
Felt the loose line jerk and tighten ; 
As he drew it in, it tugged so 
That the birch canoe stood endwise, 
Like a birch log in the water, 
With the squirrel, Adjidaumo, 
Perched and frisking on the summit. 

Full of scorn was Hiawatha 
When he saw the fish rise upward, 
Saw the pike, the Maskenozha, 
Coming nearer, nearer to him, 
And he shouted through the water, 
" Esa ! esa ! shame upon you ! 
You are but the pike, Kenozha, 
You are not the fish I wanted, 
You are not the King of Fishes ! " 
Reeling downward to the bottom 
Sank the pike in great confusion, 
And the mighty sturgeon, Nahma, 
Said to Ugudwash, the sun-fish, 
To the bream, with scales of crimson, 
" Take the bait of this great boaster, 
Break the line of Hiawatha ! " 

Slowly upward, wavering, gleaming. 
Rose the Ugudwash, the sun-fish, 
Seized the line of Hiawatha, 
Swung with all his weight upon it, 
Made a whirlpool in the water, 
Whirled the birch canoe in circles, 
Round and round in gurgling eddieSg 
Till the circles in the water 
Reached the far-off sandy beaches, 
Till the water-flags and rushes 
Nodded on the distant margins. 
But when Hiawatha saw him 
Slowly rising through the water, 
Lifting up his disk refulgent, 
Loud he shouted in derision, 
" Esa ! esa ! shame upon you I 
You are Ugudwash, the sun-fish. 
You are not the fish I wante d. 



THE SONG OF HIAWATHA 



131 



i'ou are not the King of Fishes ! " 

Slowly downward, wavering, gleaming, 
i>ank the Ugudwash, the sun-fish, 
And again the sturgeon, Nahma, 
Heard the shout of Hiawatha, 
Heard his challenge of defiance, 
The unnecessary tumult, 
Ringing far across the water. 

From the white sand of the bottom 
Up he rose with angry gesture, 
Quivering in each nerve and fibre, 
Clashing all his plates of armor, 
Gleaming bright with all his war-paint ; 
In his wrath he darted upward, 
Flashing leaped into the sunshine, 
Opened his great jaws, and swallowed 
Both canoe and Hiawatha. 

Down into that darksome cavern 
Plunged the headlong Hiawatha, 
As a log on some black river 
Shoots and plunges down the rapids, 
Found himself in utter darkness, 
Groped about in helpless wonder, 
Till he felt a great heart beating, 
Throbbing in that utter darkness. 

And he smote it in his anger, 
With his fist, the heart of Nahma, 
Felt the mighty King of Fishes 
Shudder through each nerve and fibre, 
Heard the water gurgle round him 
As he leaped and staggered through it, 
Sick at heart, and faint and weary. 

Crosswise then did Hiawatha 
Drag his birch-canoe for safety, 
Lest from out the jaws of Nahma, 
In the turmoil and confusion, 
Forth he might be hurled and perish. 
And the squirrel, Adjidaumo, 
Frisked and chattered very gayly, 
Toiled and tugged with Hiawatha 
Till the labor was completed. 

Then said Hiawatha to him, 
" O my little friend, the squirrel, 
Bravely have you toiled to help me ; 
Take the thanks of Hiawatha, 
And the name which now he gives you ; 
For hereafter and forever 
Boys shall call you Adjidaumo, 
Tail- in-air the boys shall call you ! " 

And again the sturgeon, Nahma, 
Gasped and quivered in the water, 
Then was still, and drifted landward 
Till he grated on the pebbles, 
Till the listening Hiawatha 
Heard him grate upon the margin, 



Felt him strand upon the pebbles, 
Knew that Nahma, King of Fishes, 
Lay there dead upon the margin. 

Then he heard a clang and flapping, 
As of many wings assembling, 
Heard a screaming and confusion, 
As of birds of prey contending, 
Saw a gleam of light above him, 
Shining through the ribs of Nahma, 
Saw the glittering eyes of sea-gulls, 
Of Kayoshk, the sea-gulls, peering, 
Gazing at him through the opening, 
Heard them saying to each other, 
" 'T is our brother, Hiawatha ! " 

And he shouted from below them, 
Cried exulting from the caverns : 
" O ye sea-gulls ! O my brothers ! 
I have slain the sturgeon, Nahma ; 
Make the rifts a little larger, 
With your claws the openings widen, 
Set me free from this dark prison, 
And henceforward and forever 
Men shall speak of your achievements, 
Calling you Kayoshk, the sea-gulls, 
Yes, Kayoshk, the Noble Scratchers ! " 

And the wild and clamorous sea-gulls 
Toiled with beak and claws together, 
Made the rifts and openings wider 
In the mighty ribs of Nahma, 
And from peril and from prison, 
From the body of the sturgeon, 
From the peril 6f the water, 
They released my Hiawatha. 

He was standing near his wigwam, 
On the margin of the water, 
And he called to old Nokomis, 
Called and beckoned to Nokomis, 
Pointed to the sturgeon, Nahma, 
Lying lifeless on the pebbles, 
With the sea-gulls feeding on him. 

" I have slain the Mishe-Nahma, 
Slain the King of Fishes ! " said he ; 
" Look ! the sea-gulls feed upon him, 
Yes, my friends Kayoshk, the sea-gulls J 
Drive them not away, Nokomis, 
They have saved me from great peril 
In the body of the sturgeon, 
Wait until their meal is ended, 
Till their craws are full with feasting, 
Till they homeward fly, at sunset, 
To their nests among the marshes ; 
Then bring all your pots and kettles, 
And make oil for us in Winter." 

And she waited till the sun set, 
Till the pallid moon, the Night-sun, 



132 



THE SONG OF HIAWATHA 



Rose above the tranquil water, 
Till Kayoshk, the sated sea-gulls, 
From their banquet rose with clamor, 
And across the fiery sunset 
Winged their way to far-off islands, 
To their nests among the rushes. 

To his sleep went Hiawatha, 
And Nokomis to her labor, 
Toiling patient in the moonlight, 
Till the sun and moon changed places, 
Till the sky was red with sunrise, 
And Kayoshk, the hungry sea-gulls, 
Came back from the reedy islands, 
Clamorous for their morning banquet. 

Three whole days and nights alternate 
Old Nokomis and the sea-gulls 
Stripped the oily flesh of Nahma, 
Till the waves washed through the rib-bones, 
Till the sea-gulls came no longer, 
And upon the sands lay nothing 
But the skeleton of Nahma. 



IX 



HIAWATHA AND THE PEARL-FEATHER 

On the shores of Gitche Gumee, 
Of the shining Big-Sea- Water, 
Stood Nokomis, the old woman, 
Pointing with her finger westward, 
O'er the water pointing westward, 
To the purple clouds of sunset. 

Fiercely the red sun descending 
Burned his way along the heavens, 
Set the sky on fire behind him, 
As war-parties, when retreating, 
Burn the prairies on their war-trail ; 
And the moon, the Night-sun, eastward, 
Suddenly starting from his ambush, 
Followed fast those bloody footprints, 
Followed in that fiery war-trail, 
With its glare npon his features. 

And Nokomis, the old woman, 
Pointing with her finger westward, 
Spake these words to Hiawatha : 
" Yonder dwells the great Pearl-Feather, 
Megissogwon, the Magician, 
Manito of Wealth and Wampum, 
Guarded by his fiery serpents, 
Guarded by the black pitch-water. 
You can see his fiery serpents, 
The Kenabeek, the great serpents, 
Coiling, playing in the water ; 
You can see the black pitch-water 



Stretching far away beyond them, 
To the purple clouds of sunset ! 

" He it was who slew my father, 
By his wicked wiles and cunning, 
When he from the moon descended, 
When he came on earth to seek me. 
He, the mightiest of Magicians, 
Sends the fever from the marshes, 
Sends the pestilential vapors, 
Sends the poisonous exhalations, 
Sends the white fog from the fen-lands, 
Sends disease and death among us ! 

" Take your bow, O Hiawatha, 
Take your arrows, jasper-headed, 
Take your war-club, Puggawaugun, 
And your mittens, Minjekahwun, 
And your birch-canoe for sailing, 
And the oil of Mishe-Nahma, 
So to smear its sides, that swiftly 
You may pass the black pitch-water ; 
Slay this merciless magician, 
Save the people from the fever 
That he breathes across the fen-lands, 
xA.nd avenge my father's murder ! " 

Straightway then my Hiawatha 
Armed himself with all his war-gear, 
Launched his birch-canoe for sailing ; 
With his palm its sides he patted, 
Said with glee, " Cheemaun, my darling, 
O my Birch-canoe ! leap forward, 
Where you see the fiery serpents, 
Where you see the black pitch-water ! " 

Forward leaped Cheemaun exulting, 
And the noble Hiawatha 
Sang his war-song wild and woful, 
And above him the war-eagle, 
The Keneu, the great war-eagle, 
Master of all fowls with feathers, 
Screamed and hurtled through the heavens 

Soon he reached the fiery serpents, 
The Kenabeek, the great serpents, 
Lying huge upon the water, 
Sparkling, rippling in the water, 
Lying coiled across the passage, 
With their blazing crests uplifted, 
Breathing fiery fogs and vapors, 
So that none could pass beyond them. 

But the fearless Hiawatha 
Cried aloud, and spake in this wise, 
" Let me pass my way, Kenabeek, 
Let me go upon my journey ! " 
And they answered, hissing fiercely, 
With their fiery breath made answer ? 
" Back, go back ! O Shaugodaya ! 
Back to old Nokomis, Faint-heart ! " 



THE SONG OF HIAWATHA 



133 



Then the angry Hiawatha 
Raised his mighty how of ash-tree, 
Seized his arrows, jasper-headed, 
Shot them fast among the serpents ; 
Every twanging of the bow-string 
Was a war-cry and a death-cry, 
Every whizzing of an arrow 
Was a death-song of Kenabeek. 

Weltering in the bloody water, 
Dead lay all the fiery serpents, 
And among them Hiawatha 
Harmless sailed, and cried exulting : 
" Onward, O Cheemaun, my darling ! 
Onward to the black pitch-water ! " 

Then he took the oil of Nahma, 
And the bows and sides anointed, 
Smeared them well with oil, that swiftly 
He might pass the black pitch-water. 

All night long he sailed upon it, 
Sailed upon that sluggish water, 
Covered with its mould of ages, 
Black with rotting water-rushes, 
Rank with flags and leaves of lilies, 
Stagnant, lifeless, dreary, dismal, 
Lighted by the shimmering moonlight, 
And by will-o'-the-wisps illumined, 
Fires by ghosts of dead men kindled, 
In their weary night-encampments. 

All the air was white with moonlight, 
All the water black with shadow, 
And around him the Suggema, 
The mosquito, sang his war-song, 
And the fire-flies, Wah-wah-taysee, 
Waved their torches to mislead him ; 
And the bull-frog, the Dahinda, 
Thrust his head into the moonlight, 
Fixed his yellow eyes upon him, 
Sobbed and sank beneath the surface ; 
And anon a thousand whistles, 
Answered over all the fen-lands, 
And the heron, the Shuh-shuh-gah, 
Far off on the reedy margin, 
Heralded the hero's coming. 

Westward thus fared Hiawatha, 
Toward the realm of Megissogwon, 
Toward the land of the Pearl- Feather, 
Till the level moon stared at him, 
In his face stared pale and haggard, 
Till the sun was hot behind him, 
Till it burned upon his shoulders, 
And before him on the upland 
He could see the Shining Wigwam 
Of the Manito of Wampum, 
Of the mightiest of Magicians. 

Then once more Cheemaun he patted, 



To his birch-canoe said, " Onward ! " 

And it stirred in all its fibres, 

And with one great bound of triumph 

Leaped across the water-lilies, 

Leaped through tangled flags and rushes, 

And upon the beach beyond them 

Dry-shod landed Hiawatha. 

Straight he took his bow of ash-tree, 
On the sand one end he rested, 
With his knee he pressed the middle, 
Stretched the faithful bow-string tighter, 
Took an arrow, jasper-headed, 
Shot it at the Shining Wigwam, 
Sent it singing as a herald, 
As a bearer of his message, 
Of his challenge loud and lofty : 
"Come forth from your lodge, Pearl 

Feather ! 
Hiawatha waits your coming ! " 

Straightway from the Shining Wigwam 
Came the mighty Megissogwon, 
Tall of stature, broad of shoulder, 
Dark and terrible in aspect, 
Clad from head to foot in wampum, 
Armed with all his warlike weapons, 
Painted like the sky of morning, 
Streaked with crimson, blue, and yellow. 
Crested with great eagle-feathers, 
Streaming upward, streaming outward. 

" Well I know you, Hiawatha ! " 
Cried he in a voice of thunder, 
In a tone of loud derision. 
" Hasten back, O Shaugodaya ! 
Hasten back among the womeu, 
Back to old Nokomis, Faint-heart ! 
I will slay you as you stand there, 
As of old I slew her father ! " 

But my Hiawatha answered, 
Nothing daunted, fearing nothing : 
" Big words do not smite like war-clubs g 
Boastful breath is not a bow-string, 
Taunts are not so sharp as arrows, 
Deeds are better things than words are f 
Actions mightier than boastings ! " 

Then began the greatest battle 
That the sun had ever looked on, 
That the war-birds ever witnessed. 
All a Summer's day it lasted, 
From the sunrise to the sunset ; 
For the shafts of Hiawatha 
Harmless hit the shirt of wampum, 
Harmless fell the blows he dealt it 
With his mittens, Minjekahwun, 
Harmless fell the heavy war-club ; 
It could dash the rocks asunder. 



134 



THE SONG OF HIAWATHA 



But it could not break the meshes 
Of that magic shirt of wampum. 

Till at sunset Hiawatha, 
Leaning on his bow of ash-tree, 
Wounded, weary, and desponding, 
With his mighty war-club broken, 
With his mittens torn and tattered, 
And three useless arrows only, 
Paused to rest beneath a pine-tree, 
From whose branches trailed the mosses, 
And whose trunk was coated over 
With the Dead-man's Moccasin-leather, 
With the fungus white and yellow. 

Suddenly from the boughs above him 
Sang the Mama, the woodpecker : 
" Aim your arrows, Hiawatha, 
At the head of Megissogwon, 
Strike the tuft of hair upon it, 
At their roots the long black tresses ; 
There alone can he be wounded ! " 

Winged with feathers, tipped with jasper, 
Swift flew Hiawatha's arrow, 
Just as Megissogwon, stooping, 
Raised a heavy stone to throw it. 
Full upon the crown it struck him, 
At the roots of his long tresses, 
And he reeled and staggered forward, 
Plunging like a wounded bison, 
Yes, like Pezhekee, the bison, 
When the snow is on the prairie. 

Swifter flew the second arrow, 
In the pathway of the other, 
Piercing deeper than the other, 
Wounding sorer than the other ; 
And the knees of Megissogwon 
Shook like windy reeds beneath him, 
Bent and trembled like the rushes. 

But the third and latest arrow 
Swiftest flew, and wounded sorest, 
And the mighty Megissogwon 
Saw the fiery eyes of Pauguk, 
Saw the eyes of Death glare at him, 
Heard his voice call in the darkness ; 
At the feet of Hiawatha 
Lifeless lay the great Pearl-Feather, 
Lay the mightiest of Magicians. 

Then the grateful Hiawatha 
Called the Mama, the woodpecker, 
From his perch among the branches 
Of the melancholy pine-tree, 
And, in honor of his service, 
Stained with blood the tuft of feathers 
On the little head of Mama ; 



Even to this day he wears it, 
Wears the tuft of crimson feathers, 
As a symbol of his service. 

Then he stripped the shirt of wampum 
From the back of Megissogwon, 
As a trophy of the battle, 
As a signal of his conquest. 
On the shore he left the body, 
Half on land and half in water, 
In the sand his feet were buried, 
And his face was in the water. 
And above him, wheeled and clamored 
The Keneu, the great war-eagle, 
Sailing round in narrower circles, 
Hovering nearer, nearer, nearer. 

From the wigwam Hiawatha 
Bore the wealth of Megissogwon, 
All his wealth of skins and wampum, 
Furs of bison and of beaver, 
Furs of sable and of ermine, 
Wampum belts and strings and pouches, 
Quivers wrought with beads of wampum, 
Filled with arrows, silver-headed. 

Homeward then he sailed exulting, 
Homeward through the black pitch-water, 
Homeward through the weltering serpents 
With the trophies of the battle, 
With a shout and song of triumph. 

On the shore stood old Nokomis, 
On the shore stood Chibiabos, 
And the very strong man, Kwasind, 
Waiting for the hero's coming, 
Listening to his songs of triumph. 
And the people of the village 
Welcomed him with songs and dances, 
Made a joyous feast, and shouted : 
" Honor be to Hiawatha ! 
He has slain the great Pearl-Feather, 
Slain the mightiest of Magicians, 
Him, who sent the fiery fever, 
Sent the white fog from the fen-lands, 
Sent disease and death among us ! " 

Ever dear to Hiawatha 
Was the memory of Mama ! 
And in token of his friendship, 
As a mark of his remembrance, 
He adorned and decked his pipe-stem 
With the crimson tuft of feathers, 
With the blood-red crest of Mama. 
But the wealth of Megissogwon, 
All the trophies of the battle, 
He divided with his people, 
Shared it equally among them. 



THE SONG OF HIAWATHA 



*35 



X 



HIAWATHA'S WOOING 

" As unto the bow the cord is, 

So unto the man is woman ; 

Though she bends him, she obeys him, 

Though she draws him, yet she follows ; 

Useless each without the other I " 

Thus the youthful Hiawatha 
Said within himself and pondered, 
Much perplexed by various feelings, 
Listless, longing, hoping, fearing, 
Dreaming still of Minnehaha, 
Of the lovely Laughing Water, 
In the land of the Dacotahs. 

" Wed a maiden of your people," 
Warning said the old Nokomis ; 
" Go not eastward, go not westward, 
For a stranger, whom we know not ! 
Like a fire upon the hearth-stone 
Is a neighbor's homely daughter, 
Like the starlight or the moonlight 
Is the handsomest of strangers ! " 

Thus dissuading spake Nokomis, 
And my Hiawatha answered 
Only this : " Dear old Nokomis, 
Very pleasant is the firelight, 
But I like the starlight better, 
Better do I like the moonlight ! " 

Gravely then said old Nokomis : 
" Bring not here an idle maiden, 
Bring not here a useless woman, 
Hands unskilful, feet unwilling ; 
Bring a wife with nimble fingers, 
Heart and hand that move together, 
Feet that run on willing errands ! " 

Smiling answered Hiawatha : 
" In the land of the Dacotahs 
Lives the Arrow-maker's daughter, 
Minnehaha, Laughing Water, 
Handsomest of all the women. 
I will bring her to your wigwam, 
She shall run upon your errands, 
Be your starlight, moonlight, firelight, 
Be the sunlight of my people ! " 

Still dissuading said Nokomis : 
" Bring not to my lodge a stranger 
From the land of the Dacotahs ! 
Very fierce are the Dacotahs, 
Often is there war between us, 
There are feuds yet unforgotten, 
Wounds that ache and still may open I ' 

Laughing answered Hiawatha : 



" For that reason, if no other, 
Would I wed the fair Dacotah, 
That our tribes might be united, 
That old feuds might be forgotten, 
And old wounds be healed forever ! " 

Thus departed Hiawatha 
To the land of the Dacotahs, 
To the land of handsome women ; 
Striding over moor and meadow, 
Througli interminable forests, 
Through uninterrupted silence. 

With his moccasins of magic, 
At each stride a mile he measured ; 
Yet the way seemed long before him, 
And his heart outran his footsteps ; 
And he journeyed without resting, 
Till he heard the cataract's laughter, 
Heard the Falls of Minnehaha 
Calling to him through the silence. 
" Pleasant is the sound ! " he murmured, 
" Pleasant is the voice that calls me I " 

On the outskirts of the forests, 
'Twixt the shadow and the sunshine, 
Herds of fallow deer were feeding, 
But they saw not Hiawatha ; 
To his bow he whispered, " Fail not ! " 
To his arrow whispered, " Swerve not I " 
Sent it singing on its errand, 
To the red heart of the roebuck ; 
Threw the deer across his shoulder, 
And sped forward without pausing. 

At the doorway of his wigwam 
Sat the ancient Arrow-maker, 
In the land of the Dacotahs, 
Making arrow-heads of jasper, 
Arrow-heads of chalcedony. 
At his side, in all her beauty, 
Sat the lovely Minnehaha, 
Sat his daughter, Laughing Water, 
Plaiting mats of flags and rushes ; 
Of the past the old man's thoughts *are, 
And the maiden's of the future. 

He was thinking, as he sat thefe, 
Of the days when with such arrotrs 
He had struck the deer and bison* 
On the Muskoday, the meadow ; 
Shot the wild goose, flying southward, 
On the wing, the clamorous Wa'Kra ; 
Thinking of the great war-parties, 
How they came to buy his arrotts, 
Could not fight without his arrcws. 
Ah, no more such noble warriors 
Could be found on earth as ther were ! 
Now the men were all like won en, 
Only used their tongues for weapons I 



36 



THE SONG OF HIAWATHA 



She was thinking of a hunter, 
From another tribe and country, 
Young and tall and very handsome, 
Who one morning, in the Spring-time, 
Came to buy her father's arrows, 
Sat and rested in the wigwam, 
Lingered long about the doorway, 
Looking back as he departed. 
She had heard her father praise him, 
Praise his courage and his wisdom ; 
Would he come again for arrows 
To the Falls of Minnehaha ? 
On the mat her hands lay idle, 
And her eyes were very dreamy. 

Through their thoughts they heard a 
footstep, 
Heard a rustling in the branches, 
And with glowing cheek and forehead, 
With the deer upon his shoulders, 
Suddenly from out the woodlands 
Hiawatha stood before them. 

Straight the ancient Arrow-maker 
Looked up gravely from his labor, 
Laid aside the unfinished arrow, 
Bade him enter at the doorway, 
Saying, as he rose to meet him, 
" Hiawatha, you are welcome ! " 

At the feet of Laughing Water 
Hiawatha laid his burden, 
Threw the red deer from his shoulders ; 
And the maiden looked up at him, 
Looked up from her mat of rushes, 
Said with gentle look and accent, 
" You are welcome, Hiawatha ! " 

Very spacious was the wigwam, 
Made of deer-skins dressed and whitened, 
With the Gods of the Dacotahs 
Drawn and painted on its curtains, 
And so tall the doorway, hardly 
Hiawatha stooped to enter, 
Hardly touched his eagle-feathers 
As he entered at the doorway. 

Then uprose the Laughing Water, 
From the ground fair Minnehaha, 
Laid aside her mat unfinished, 
Brought forth food and set before them, 
Water brought them from the brooklet, 
Gave them food in earthen vessels, 
Gave them drink in bowls of bass-wood, 
Listened while the guest was speaking, 
Listened while her father answered, 
But not once her lips she opened, 
Not a single word she uttered. 

Yes, as in a dream she listened 
To the words of Hiawatha, 



As he talked of old Nokomis, 

Who had nursed him in his childhood, 

As he told of his companions, 

Chibiabos, the musician, 

And the very strong man, Kwasind, 

And of happiness and plenty 

In the land of the Ojibways, 

In the pleasant land and peaceful. 

" After many years of warfare, 
Many years of strife and bloodshed, 
There is peace between the Ojibvrays 
And the tribe of the Dacotahs." 
Thus continued Hiawatha, 
And then added, speaking slowly, 
" That this peace may last forever, 
And our hands be clasped more closely, 
And our hearts be more united, 
Give me as my wife this maiden, 
Minnehaha, Laughing Water, 
Loveliest of Dacotah women ! " 

And the ancient Arrow-maker 
Paused a moment ere he answered, 
Smoked a little while in silence, 
Looked at Hiawatha proudly, 
Fondly looked at Laughing Water, 
And made answer very gravely : 
" Yes, if Minnehaha wishes ; 
Let your heart speak, Minnehaha ! " 

And the lovely Laughing Water 
Seemed more lovely as she stood there, 
Neither willing nor reluctant, 
As she went to Hiawatha, 
Softly took the seat beside him, 
While she said, and blushed to say it, 
" I will follow you, my husband I " 

This was Hiawatha's wooing ! 
Thus it was he won the daughter 
Of the ancient Arrow-maker, 
In the land of the Dacotahs ! 

From the wigwam he departed, 
Leading with him Laughing Water ; 
Hand in hand they went together, 
Through the woodland and the meadow 
Left the old man standing lonely 
At the doorway of his wigwam, 
Heard the Falls of Minnehaha 
Calling to them from the distance, 
Crying to them from afar off, 
" Fare thee well, O Minnehaha ! " 

And the ancient Arrow-maker 
Turned again unto his labor, 
Sat down by his sunny doorway, 
Murmuring to himself, and saying : 
" Thus it is our daughters leave us, 
Those we love, and those who love us « 






THE SONG OF HIAWATHA 



137 



Juet when they have learned to help us, 
When we are old and lean upon them, 
Comes a youth with Haunting feathers, 
With his flute of reeds, a stranger 
Wanders piping through the village, 
Beckons to the fairest maiden, 
And she follows where he leads her, 
Leaving all things for the stranger ! " 

Pleasant was the journey homeward, 
Through interminable forests, 
Over meadow, over mountain, 
Over river, hill, and hollow. 
Short it seemed to Hiawatha, 
Though they journeyed very slowly, 
Though his pace he checked and slackened 
To the steps of Laughing Water. 

Over wide and rushing rivers 
In his arms he bore the maiden ; 
Light he thought her as a feather, 
As the plume upon his head-gear ; 
Cleared the tangled pathway for her, 
Bent aside the swaying branches, 
Made at night a lodge of branches, 
And a bed with boughs of hemlock, 
And a fire before the doorway 
With the dry cones of the pine-tree. 

All the travelling winds went with them, 
O'er the meadows, through the forest ; 
All the stars of night looked at them, 
Watched with sleepless eyes their slumber; 
From his ambush in the oak-tree 
Peeped the squirrel, Adjidaumo, 
Watched with eager eyes the lovers ; 
And the rabbit, the Wabasso, 
Scampered from the path before them, 
Peering, peeping from his burrow, 
Sat erect upon his haunches, 
Watched with curious eyes the lovers. 

Pleasant was the journey homeward ! 
All the birds sang loud and sweetly 
Songs of happiness and heart's-ease ; 
Sang the bluebird, the Owaissa, 
" Happy are you, Hiawatha, 
Having such a wife to love you ! " 
Sang the robin, the Opechee, 
" Happy are you, Laughing Water, 
Having such a noble husband ! " 

From the sky the sun benignant 
Looked upon them through the branches, 
Saying to them, " O my children, 
Love is sunshine, hate is shadow, 
Life is checkered shade and sunshine, 
Rule by love, O Hiawatha ! " 

From the sky the moon looked at them, 
Fillp^ the lodge with mystic splendors, 



Whispered to them, " O my children, 
Day is restless, night is quiet, 
Man imperious, woman feeble ; 
Half is mine, although I follow ; 
Rule by patience, Laughing Water ! " 

Thus it was they journeyed homeward [ 
Thus it was that Hiawatha 
To the lodge of old Nokomis 
Brought the moonlight, starlight, firelight 
Brought the sunshine of his people, 
Minnehaha, Laughing Water, 
Handsomest of all the women 
In the land of the Dacotahs, 
In the land of handsome women. 



XI 



HIAWATHA'S WEDDING-FEAST 

You shall hear how Pau-Puk-Keewis, 
How the handsome Yenadizze 
Danced at Hiawatha's wedding ; 
How the gentle Chibiabos, 
He the sweetest of musicians, 
Sang his songs of love and longing ; 
How Iagoo, the great boaster, 
He the marvellous story-teller, 
Told his tales of strange adventure, 
That the feast might be more joyous, 
That the time might pass more gayly, 
And the guests be more contented. 

Sumptuous was the feast Nokomis 
Made at Hiawatha's wedding ; 
All the bowls were made of bass-wood, 
White and polished very smoothly, 
All the spoons of horn of bison, 
Black and polished very smoothly. 

She had sent through all the village 
Messengers with wands of willow, 
As a sign of invitation, 
As a token of the feasting ; 
And the wedding guests assembled, 
Clad in all their richest raiment, 
Robes of fur and belts of wampum, 
Splendid with their paint and plumage, 
Beautiful with beads and tassels. 

First they ate the sturgeon, Nahma, 
And the pike, the Maskenozha, 
Caught and cooked by old Nokomis .* 
Then on pemican they feasted, 
Pemican and buffalo marrow, 
Haunch of deer and hump of bison, 
Yellow cakes of the Mondamin, 
And the wild rice of the river. 



\ 



»3» 



THE SONG OF HIAWATHA 



But the gracious Hiawatha, 
And the lovely Laughing Water, 
And the careful old Nokomis, 
Tasted not the food before them, 
Only waited on the others, 
Only served their guests in silence. 

And when all the guests had finished, 
Old Nokomis, brisk and busy, 
From an ample pouch of otter, 
Filled the red-stone pipes for smoking 
With tobacco from the South-land, 
Mixed with bark of the red willow, 
And with herbs and leaves of fragrance. 

Then she said, " O Pau-Puk-Keewis, 
Dance for us your merry dances, 
Dance the Beggar's Dance to please us, 
That the feast may be more joyous, 
That the time may pass more gayly, 
And our guests be more contented ! " 

Then the handsome Pau-Puk-Keewis, 
He the idle Yenadizze, 
He the merry mischief-maker, 
Whom the people called the Storm-Fool, 
Rose among the guests assembled. 

Skilled was he in sports and pastimes, 
In the merry dance of snow-shoes, 
In the play of quoits and ball-play ; 
Skilled was he in games of hazard, 
In all games of skill and hazard, 
Pugasaing, the Bowl and Counters, 
Kuntassoo, the Game of Plum-stones. 
Though the warriors called him Faint- 
Heart, 
Called him coward, Shaugodaya, 
Idler, gambler, Yenadizze, 
Little heeded he their jesting, 
Little cared he for their insults, 
For the women and the maidens 
Loved the handsome Pau-Puk-Keewis. 

He was dressed in shirt of doeskin, 
White and soft, and fringed with ermine, 
All inwrought with beads of wampum ; 
He was dressed in deer-skin leggings, 
Fringed with hedgehog quills and ermine, 
And in moccasins of buck-skin, 
Thick with quills and beads embroidered. 
On his head were plumes of swan's down, 
On his heels were tails of foxes, 
In one hand a fan of feathers, 
And a pipe was in the other. 

Barred with streaks of red and yellow, 
Streaks of blue and bright vermilion, 
Shone the face of Pau-Puk-Keewis. 
From his forehead fell his tresses, 
Smooth, and parted like a woman's, 



Shining bright with oil, and plaited, 
Hung with braids of scented grasses, 
As among the guests assembled, 
To the sound of flutes and singing, 
To the sound of drums and voices, 
Rose the handsome Pau-Puk-Keewis, 
And began his mystic dances. 

First he danced a solemn measure, 
Very slow in step and gesture, 
In and out among the pine-trees, 
Through the shadows and the sunshine, 
Treading softly like a panther. 
Then more swiftly and still swifter, 
Whirling, spinning round in circles, 
Leaping o'er the guests assembled, 
Eddying round and round the wigwam, 
Till the leaves went whirling with him, 
Till the dust and wind together 
Swept in eddies round about him. 

Then along the sandy margin 
Of the lake, the Big-Sea- Water, 
On he sped with frenzied gestures, 
Stamped upon the sand, and tossed it 
Wildly in the air around him ; 
Till the wind became a whirlwind, 
Till the sand was blown and sifted 
Like great snowdrifts o'er the landscape, 
Heaping all the shores with Sand Dunes, 
Sand Hills of the Nagow Wudjoo ! 

Thus the merry Pau-Puk-Keewis 
Danced his Beggar's Dance to please them 
And, returning, sat down laughing 
There among the guests assembled, 
Sat and fanned himself serenely 
With his fan of turkey-feathers. 

Then they said to Chibiabos, 
To the friend of Hiawatha, 
To the sweetest of all singers, 
To the best of all musicians, 
" Sing to us, O Chibiabos ! 
Songs of love and songs of longing, 
That the feast may be more joyous, 
That the time may pass more gayly, 
And our guests be more contented ! " 

And the gentle Chibiabos 
Sang in accents sweet and tender, 
Sang in tones of deep emotion, 
Songs of love and songs of longing ; 
Looking still at Hiawatha, 
Looking at fair Laughing Water, 
Sang he softly, sang in this wise : 

" Onaway ! Awake, beloved ! 
Thou the wild-flower of the forest 1 
Thou the wild-bird of the prairie t 
Thou with eyes so soft and fawn-like f 



U 



THE SONG OF HIAWATHA 



I3S 



" If thou only lookest at me, 
I am happy, I am happy, 
As the lilies of the prairie, 
When they feel the dew upon them ! 

" Sweet thy breath is as the fragrance 
Of the wild-flowers in the morning, 
As their fragrance is at evening, 
In the Moon when leaves are falling. 

" Does not all the blood within me 
Leap to meet thee, leap to meet thee, 
As the springs to meet the sunshine, 
In the Moon when nights are brightest ? 

" Onaway ! my heart sings to thee, 
Sings with joy when thou art near me, 
As the sighing, singing branches 
In the pleasant Moon of Strawberries ! 

" When thou art not pleased, beloved, 
Then my heart is sad and darkened, 
As the shining river darkens 
When the clouds drop shadows on it ! 

" When thou smilest, my beloved, 
Then my troubled heart is brightened, 
As in sunshine gleam the ripples 
That the cold wind makes in rivers. 

" Smiles the earth, and smile the waters. 
Smile the cloudless skies above us, 
But I lose the way of smiling 
When thou art no longer near me ! 

" I myself, myself ! behold me ! 
Blood of my beating heart, behold me ! 
Oh awake, awake, beloved ! 
Onaway ! awake, beloved ! " 

Thus the gentle Chibiabos 
Sang his song of love and longing ; 
And Iagoo, the great boaster, 
He the marvellous story-teller, 
He the friend of old Nokomis, 
Jealous of the sweet musician, 
Jealous of the applause they gave him, 
Saw in all the eyes around him, 
Saw in all their looks and gestures, 
That the wedding guests assembled 
Longed to hear his pleasant stories, 
His immeasurable falsehoods. 

Very boastful was Iagoo ; 
Never heard he an adventure 
But himself had met a greater ; 
Never any deed of daring 
But himself had done a bolder ; 
Never any marvellous story 
But himself could tell a stranger. 

Would you listen to his boasting, 
Would you only give him credence, 
No one ever shot an arrow 
Half so far and high as he had ; 



Ever caught so" many fishes, 
Ever killed so many reindeer, 
Ever trapped so many beaver ! 

None could run so fast as he could, 
None could dive so deep as he could, 
None could swim so far as he could ; 
None had made so many journeys, 
None had seen so many wonders, 
As this wonderful Iagoo, 
As this marvellous story-teller ! 

Thus his name became a by- word 
And a jest among the people ; 
And whene'er a boastful hunter 
Praised his own address too highly, 
Or a warrior, home returning, 
Talked too much of his achievements, 
All his hearers cried, " Iagoo ! 
Here 's Iagoo come among us ! " 

He it was who carved the cradle 
Of the little Hiawatha, 
Carved its framework out of linden, 
Bound it strong with reindeer sinews } 
He it was who taught him later 
How to make his bows and arrows, 
How to make the bows of ash-tree, 
And the arrows of the oak-tree. 
So among the guests assembled 
At my Hiawatha's wedding 
Sat Iagoo, old and ugly, 
Sat the marvellous story-teller. 

And they said, " O good Iagoo, 
Tell us now a tale of wonder, 
Tell us of some strange adventure, 
That the feast may be more joyous, 
That the time may pass more gayly, 
And our guests be more contented ! " 

And Iagoo answered straightway, 
" You shall hear a tale of wonder, 
You shall hear the strange adventures 
Of Osseo, the Magician, 
From the Evening Star descended." 



XII 

THE SON OF THE EVENING STAR 

Can it be the sun descending 
O'er the level plain of water ? 
Or the Red Swan floating, flying, 
Wounded by the magic arrow, 
Staining all the waves with crimson, 
With the crimson of its life-blood, 
Filling all the air with splendor, 
With the splendor of its plumage ? 



f40 



THE SONG OF HIAWATHA 



Yes ; it is the sua descending, 
Sinking down into the water ; 
All the sky is stained with purple, 
All the water flushed with crimson ! 
No ; it is the Red Swan floating, 
Diving down beneath the water ; 
To the sky its wings are lifted, 
With its blood the waves are reddened ! 

Over it the Star of Evening 
Melts and trembles through the purple, 
Hangs suspended in the twilight. 
No ; it is a bead of wampum 
On the robes of the Great Spirit 
As he passes through the twilight, 
Walks in silence through the heavens. 

This with joy beheld Iagoo 
And he said in haste : " Behold it ! 
See the sacred Star of Evening ! 
You shall hear a tale of wonder, 
Hear the story of Osseo, 
Son of the Evening Star, Osseo ! 

" Once, in days no more remembered, 
Ages nearer the beginning, 
When the heavens were closer to us, 
And the Gods were more familiar, 
In the North-land lived a hunter, 
With ten young and comely daughters, 
Tall and lithe as wands of willow ; 
Only Oweenee, the youngest, 
She the wilful and the wayward, 
She the silent, dreamy maiden, 
Was the fairest of the sisters. 

" All these women married warriors, 
Married brave and haughty husbands ; 
Only Oweenee, the youngest, 
Laughed and flouted all her lovers, 
All her young and handsome suitors, 
And then married old Osseo, 
Old Osseo, poor and ugly, 
Broken with age and weak with coughing, 
Always coughing like a squirrel. 

" Ah, but beautiful within him 
Was the spirit of Osseo, 
From the Evening Star descended, 
Star of Evening, Star of Woman, 
Star of tenderness and passion ! 
All its fire was in his bosom, 
All its beauty in his spirit, 
All its mystery in his being, 
All its splendor in his language ! 

" And her lovers, the rejected, 
Handsome men with belts of wampum, 
Handsome men with paint and feathers, 
Pointed at her in derision, 
Followed her with jest and laughter. 



But she said : ' I care not for you, 
Care not for your belts of wampum, 
Care not for your paint and feathers, 
Care not for your jests and laughter ; 
I am happy with Osseo ! ' 

" Once to some great feast invited, 
Through the damp and dusk of evenings 
Walked together the ten sisters, 
Walked together with their husbands ; 
Slowly followed old Osseo, 
With fair Oweenee beside him ; 
All the others chatted gayly, 
These two only walked in silence. 

" At the western sky Osseo 
Gazed intent, as if imploring, 
Often stopped and gazed imploring 
At the trembling Star of Evening, 
At the tender Star of Woman ; 
And they heard him murmur softly, 
' Ah, showain nemeshin, Nosa / 
Pity, pity me, my father ! ' 

" ' Listen ! ' said the eldest sister, 
' He is praying to his father ! 
What a pity that the old man 
Does not stumble in the pathway, 
Does not break his neck by falling ! ' 
And they laughed till all the forest 
Rang with their unseemly laughter. 

" On their pathway through the wood* 
lands 
Lay an oak, by storms uprooted, 
Lay the great trunk of an oak-tree, 
Buried half in leaves and mosses, 
Mouldering, crumbling, huge and hollow. 
And Osseo, when he saw it, 
Gave a shout, a cry of anguish, 
Leaped into its yawning cavern, 
At one end went in an old man, 
Wasted, wrinkled, old, and ugly ; 
From the other came a young man, 
Tall and straight and strong and handsome, 

" Thus Osseo was transfigured, 
Thus restored to youth and beauty ; 
But, alas for good Osseo, 
And for Oweenee, the faithful ! 
Strangely, too, was she transfigured. 
Changed into a weak old woman, 
With a staff she tottered onward, 
Wasted, wrinkled, old, and ugly ! 
And the sisters and their husbands 
Laughed until the echoing forest 
Rang with their unseemly laughter. 

" But Osseo turned not from her, 
Walked with slower step beside her, 
Took her hand, as brown and withered 



THE SONG OF HIAWATHA 



141 



As au oak-leaf is in Winter, 
Called her sweetheart, Nenemoosha, 
Soothed her with soft words of kindness, 
Till they reached the lodge of feasting, 
Till they sat down in the wigwam, 
Sacred to the Star of Evening, 
To the tender Star of Woman. 

" Wrapt in visions, lost in dreaming, 
At the banquet sat Osseo ; 
All were merry, all were happy, 
Ail were joyous but Osseo. 
Neither food nor drink he tasted, 
Neither did he speak nor listen, 
But as one bewildered sat he, 
Looking dreamily and sadly, 
First at Oweenee, then upward 
At the gleaming sky above them. 

" Then a voice was heard, a whisper, 
Coming from the starry distance, 
Coming from the empty vastness, 
Low, and musical, and tender ; 
And the voice said : ' O Osseo ! 
O my son, my best beloved ! 
Broken are the spells that bound you, 
All the charms of the magicians, 
All the magic powers of evil ; 
Come to me ; ascend, Osseo t 

" ' Taste the food that stands before 
you : 
It is blessed and enchanted, 
It has magic virtues in it, 
It will change you to a spirit. 
All your bowls and all your kettles 
Shall be wood and clay no longer ; 
But the bowls be changed to wampum, 
And the kettles shall be silver ; 
They shall shine like shells of scarlet, 
Like the fire shall gleam and glimmer. 

" ' And the women shall no longer 
Bear the dreary doom of labor, 
But be changed to birds, and glisten 
With the beauty of the starlight, 
Painted with the dusky splendors 
Of the skies and clouds of evening ! ' 

" What Osseo heard as whispers, 
What as words he comprehended, 
Was but music to the others, 
Music as of birds afar off, 
Of the whippoorwill afar off, 
Of the lonely Wawonaissa 
Singing in the darksome forest. 

" Then the lodge began to tremble, 
Straight began to shake and tremble, 
And they felt it rising, rising, 
Slowly through the air ascending, 



From the darkness of the tree-tops 
Forth into the dewy starlight, 
Till it passed the topmost branches ; 
And behold ! the wooden dishes 
All were changed to shells of scarlet ! 
And behold ! the earthen kettles 
All were changed to bowls of silver ! 
And the roof-poles of the wigwam 
Were as glittering rods of silver, 
And the roof of bark upon them 
As the shining shards of beetles. 

" Then Osseo gazed around him, 
And he saw the nine fair sisters, 
All the sisters and their husbands, 
Changed to birds of various plumage. 
Some were jays and some were magpies, 
Others thrushes, others blackbirds ; 
And they hopped, and sang, and twittered, 
Perked and fluttered all their feathers, 
Strutted in their shining plumage, 
And their tails like fans unfolded. 

" Only Oweenee, the youngest, 
Was not changed, but sat in silence, 
Wasted, wrinkled, old, and ugly, 
Looking sadly at the others ; 
Till Osseo, gazing upward, 
Gave another cry of anguish, 
Such a ory as he had uttered 
By the oak-tree in the forest. 

" Then returned her youth and beauty, 
And her soiled and tattered garments 
Were transformed to robes of ermine, 
And her staff became a feather, 
Yes, a shining silver feather ! 

" And again the wigwam trembled. 
Swayed and rushed through airy currents, 
Through transparent cloud and vapor, 
And amid celestial splendors 
On the Evening Star alighted, 
As a snow-flake falls on snow-flake, 
As a leaf drops on a river, 
As the thistle-down on water. 

" Forth with cheerful words of welcome 
Came the father of Osseo, 
He with radiant locks of silver, 
He with eyes serene and tender. 
And he said : ' My son, Osseo, 
Hang the cage of birds you bring there, 
Hang the cage with rods of silver, 
And the birds with glistening feathers, 
At the doorway of my wigwam.' 

" At the door he hung the bird-cage f 
And they entered in and gladly 
Listened to Osseo's father, 
Ruler of the Star of Evening, 



142 



THE SONG OF HIAWATHA 



As he said : ' O my Osseo 1 

I have had compassion on you, 

Given you back your youth and beauty, 

Into birds of various plumage 

Changed your sisters and their husbands ; 

Changed them thus because they mocked 

you 
In the figure of the old man, 
In that aspect sad and wrinkled, 
Could not see your heart of passion, 
Could not see your youth immortal ; 
Only Oweenee, the faithful, 
Saw your naked heart and loved you. 

" ' In the lodge that glimmers yonder, 
In the little star that twinkles 
Through the vapors, on the left hand, 
Lives the envious Evil Spirit, 
The Wabeno, the magician, 
Who transformed you to an old man. 
Take heed lest his beams fall on you, 
For the rays he darts around him 
Are the power of his enchantment, 
Are the arrows that he uses.' 

" Many years, in peace and quiet, 
On the peaceful Star of Evening 
Dwelt Osseo with his father ; 
Many years, in song and flutter, 
At the doorway of the wigwam, 
Hung the cage with rods of silver, 
And fair Oweenee, the faithful, 
Bore a son unto Osseo, 
With the beauty of his mother, 
With the courage of his father. 

" And the boy grew up and prospered, 
And Osseo, to delight him, 
Made him little bows and arrows, 
Opened the great cage of silver, 
And let loose his aunts and uncles, 
All those birds with glossy feathers, 
For his little son to shoot at. 

" Round and round they wheeled and 
darted, 
Filled the Evening Star with music, 
W T ith their songs of joy and freedom ; 
Filled the Evening Star with splendor, 
With the fluttering of their plumage ; 
Till the boy, the little hunter, 
Bent his bow and shot an arrow, 
Shot a swift and fatal arrow, 
And a bird, with shining feathers, 
At his feet fell wounded sorely. 

" But, O wondrous transformation ! 
'T was no bird he saw before him, 
'T was a beautiful young woman, 
With the arrow in her bosom ! 



" When her blood fell on the planet, 
On the sacred Star of Evening, 
Broken was the spell of magic, 
Powerless was the strange enchantment, 
And the youth, the fearless bowman, 
Suddenly felt himself descending, 
Held by unseen hands, but sinking 
Downward through the empty spaces, 
Downward through the clouds and vapors, 
Till he rested on an island, 
On an island, green and grassy, 
Yonder in the Big-Sea- Water, 

" After him he saw descending 
All the birds with shining feathers, 
Fluttering, falling, wafted downward, 
Like the painted leaves of Autumn ; 
And the lodge with poles of silver, 
With its roof like wings of beetles, 
Like the shining shards of beetles, 
By the winds of heaven uplifted, 
Slowly sank upon the island, 
Bringing back the good Osseo, 
Bringing Oweenee, the faithful. 

" Then the birds, again transfigured, 
Reassumed the shape of mortals, 
Took their shape, but not their stature ; 
They remained as Little People, 
Like the pygmies, the Puk-Wudjies, 
And on pleasant nights of Summer, 
When the Evening Star was shining, 
Hand in hand they danced together 
On the island's craggy headlands, 
On the sand-beach low and level. 

"Still their glittering lodge is seen 
there, 
On the tranquil Summer evenings, 
And upon the shore the fisher 
Sometimes hears their happy voices, 
Sees them dancing in the starlight ! " 

When the story was completed, 
When the wondrous tale was ended, 
Looking round upon his listeners, 
Solemnly lagoo added : 
" There are great men, I have known such, 
Whom their people understand not, 
Whom they even make a jest of, 
Scoff and jeer at in derision. 
From the story of Osseo 
Let us learn the fate of jesters ! " 

All the wedding guests delighted 
Listened to the marvellous story, 
Listened laughing and applauding, 
And they whispered to each other : 
" Does he mean himself, I wonder ? 
And are we the aunts and uncles ? " 



THE SONG OF HIAWATHA 



*43 



Then again sang Cbibiabos, 
Sang a song of love and longing, 
In those accents sweet and tender, 
In those tones of pensive sadness, 
Sang a maiden's lamentation 
For her lover, her Algonquin. 

" When I think of my beloved, 
Ah me ! think of my beloved, 
When my heart is thinking of him, 
O my sweetheart, my Algonquin ! 

"Ah me ! when I parted from him, 
Round my neck he hung the wampum, 
As a pledge, the snow-white wampum, 
my sweetheart, my Algonquin ! 

" I will go with you, he whispered, 
Ah me ! to your native country ; 
Let me go with you, he whispered, 
my sweetheart, my Algonquin ! 

M Far away, away, I answered, 
Very far away, I answered, 
Ah me ! is my native country, 
my sweetheart, my Algonquin ! 

" When I looked back to behold him, 
Where we parted, to behold him, 
After me he still was gazing, 
my sweetheart, my Algonquin ! 

" By the tree he still was standing, 
By the fallen tree was standing, 
That had dropped into the water, 
O my sweetheart, my Algonquin ! 

" When I think of my beloved, 
Ah me ! think of my beloved, 
When my heart is thinking of him, 
my sweetheart, my Algonquin ! " 

Such was Hiawatha's Wedding, 
Such the dance of Pau-Puk-Keewis, 
Such the story of Iagoo, 
Such the songs of Chibiabos ; 
Thus the wedding banquet ended, 
And the wedding guests departed, 
Leaving Hiawatha happy 
With the night and Minnehaha. 



XIII 

BLESSING THE CORNFIELDS 

Sing, Song of Hiawatha, 
Of the happy days that followed, 
In the land of the Ojibways, 
In the pleasant land and peaceful ! 
Sing the mysteries of Mondamin, 
Sing the Blessing of the Cornfields ! 
Buried was the bloody hatchet, 



Buried was the dreadful war-club, 
Buried were all warlike weapons, 
And the war-cry was forgotten. 
There was peace among the nations ; 
Unmolested roved the hunters, 
Built the birch canoe for sailing, 
Caught the fish in lake and river, 
Shot the deer and trapped the beaver ; 
Unmolested worked the women, 
Made their sugar from the maple, 
Gathered wild rice in the meadows, 
Dressed the skins of deer and beaver. 

All around the happy village 
Stood the maize-fields, green and shining 
Waved the green plumes of Mondamin, 
Waved his soft and sunny tresses, 
Filling all the land with plenty. 
'T was the women who in Spring-time 
Planted the broad fields and fruitful, 
Buried in the earth Mondamin ; 
'T was the women who in Autumn 
Stripped the yellow husks of harvest, 
Stripped the garments from Mondamin, 
Even as Hiawatha taught them. 

Once, when all the maize was planted, 
Hiawatha, wise and thoughtful, 
Spake and said to Minnehaha, 
To his wife, the Laughing Water : 
" You shall bless to-night the cornfields, 
Draw a magic circle round them, 
To protect them from destruction, 
Blast of mildew, blight of insect, 
Wagemin, the thief of cornfields, 
Paimosaid, who steals the maize-ear ! 

" In the night, when all is silence, 
In the night, when all is darkness, 
When the Spirit of Sleep, Nepahwin, 
Shuts the doors of all the wigwams, 
So that not an ear can hear you, 
So that not an eye can see you, 
Rise up from your bed in silence, 
Lay aside your garments wholly, 
Walk around the fields you planted, 
Round the borders of the cornfields, 
Covered by your tresses only, 
Robed with darkness as a garment. 

" Thus the fields shall be more fruitful, 
And the passing of your footsteps 
Draw a magic circle round them, 
So that neither blight nor mildew, 
Neither burrowing worm nor insect, 
Shall pass o'er the magic circle ; 
Not the dragon-fly, Kwo-ne-she, 
Nor the spider, Subbekashe, 
Nor the grasshopper, Pah-puk-keena, 



144 



THE SONG OF HIAWATHA 



Nor the mighty caterpillar, 
Way-inuk-kwana, with the bear-skin, 
King of all the caterpillars ! " 

On the tree-tops near the cornfields 
Sat the hungry crows and ravens, 
Kahgahgee, the King of Ravens, 
With his band of black marauders. 
And they laughed at Hiawatha, 
Till the tree-tops shook with laughter, 
With their melancholy laughter, 
At the words of Hiawatha. 
" Hear him ! " said thej ; " hear the Vfise 

Man, 
Hear the plots of Hiawatha ! " 

When the noiseless night descended 
Broad and dark o'er field and forest, 
When the mournful Wawonaissa 
Sorrowing sang among the hemlocks, 
And the Spirit of Sleep, Nepahwin, 
Shut the doors of all the wigwams, 
From her bed rose Laughing Water, 
Laid aside her garments wholly, 
And with darkness clothed and guarded, 
Unashamed and unaffrighted, 
Walked securely round the cornfields, 
Drew the sacred, magic circle 
Of her footprints round the cornfields. 

No one but the Midnight only 
Saw her beauty in the darkness, 
No one but the Wawonaissa 
Heard the panting of her bosom ; 
Guskewau, the darkness, wrapped her 
Closely in his sacred mantle, 
So that none might see her beauty, 
So that none might boast, " I saw her ! " 

On the morrow, as the day dawned, 
Kahgahgee, the King of Ravens, 
Gathered all his black marauders, 
Crows and blackbirds, jays and ravens, 
Clamorous on the dusky tree-tops, 
And descended, fast and fearless, 
On the fields of Hiawatha, 
On the grave of the Mondamin. 

" We will drag Mondamin," said they, 
u From the grave where he is buried, 
Spite of all the magic circles 
Laughing Water draws around it, 
Spite of all the sacred footprints 
Minnehaha stamps upon it ! " 

But the wary Hiawatha, 
Ever thoughtful, careful, watchful, 
Had o'erheard the scornful laughter 
When they mocked him from the tree-tops. 
" Kaw ! " he said, " my friends the ravens ! 
Kahgahgee, my King of Ravens ! 



I will teach you all a lesson 

That shall not be soon forgotten ! " 

He had risen before the daybreak, 
He had spread o'er all the cornfields 
Snares to catch the black marauders, 
And was lying now in ambush 
In the neighboring grove of pine-trees. 
Waiting for the crows and blackbirds, 
Waiting for the jays and ravens. 

Soon they came with caw and clamor, 
Rush of wings and cry of voices, 
To their work of devastation, 
Settling down upon the cornfields, 
Delving deep with beak and talon, 
For the body of Mondamin. 
And with all their craft and cunning, 
All their skill in wiles of warfare, 
They perceived no danger near them, 
Till their claws became entangled, 
Till they found themselves imprisoned 
In the snares of Hiawatha. 

From his place of ambush came he, 
Striding terrible among them, 
And so awful was his aspect 
That the bravest quailed with terror. 
Without mercy he destroyed them 
Right and left, by tens and twenties, 
And their wretched, lifeless bodies 
Hung aloft on poles for scarecrows 
Round the consecrated cornfields, 
As a signal of his vengeance, 
As a warning to marauders. 

Only Kahgahgee, the leader, 
Kahgahgee, the King of Ravens, 
He alone was spared among them 
As a hostage for his people. 
With his prisoner-string he bound him 
Led him captive to his wigwam, 
Tied him fast with cords of elm-bark 
To the ridge-pole of his wigwam. 

" Kahgahgee, my raven ! " said he, 
" You the leader of the robbers, 
You the plotter of this mischief, 
The contriver of this outrage, 
I will keep you, I will hold you, 
As a hostage for your people, 
As a pledge of good behavior ! " 

And he left him, grim and sulky, 
Sitting in the morning sunshine 
On the summit of the wigwam, 
Croaking fiercely his displeasure, 
Flapping his great sable pinions, 
Vainly struggling for his freedom, 
Vainly calling on his people ! 

Summer passed, and Shawondasee 



THE SONG OF HIAWATHA 



145 



Breathea his sighs o'er all the landscape, 
From the South-laud sent his ardors, 
Wafted kisses warm and tender ; 
And the maize-field grew and ripened, 
Till it stood in all the splendor 
Of its garments green and yellow, 
Of its tassels and its plumage, 
And the maize-ears full and shining 
Gleamed from bursting sheaths of verdure. 

Then Nokomis, the old woman, 
Spake, and said to Minnehaha : 
" 'T is the Moon when leaves are falling ; 
All the wild rice has been gathered, 
And the maize is ripe and ready ; 
Let us gather in the harvest, 
Let us wrestle with Mondamin, 
Strip him of his plumes and tassels, 
Of his garments green and yellow ! " 

And the merry Laughing Water 
Went rejoicing from the wigwam, 
With Nokomis, old and wrinkled, 
And they called the women round them, 
Called the young men and the maidens, 
To the harvest'of the cornfields, 
To the husking of the maize-ear. 

On the border of the forest, 
Underneath the fragrant pine-trees, 
Sat the old men and the warriors 
Smoking in the pleasant shadow. 
In uninterrupted silence 
Looked they at the gamesome labor 
Of the young men and the women ; 
Listened to their noisy talking, 
To their laughter and their singing, 
Heard them chattering like the magpies, 
Heard them laughing like the blue-jays, 
Heard them singing like the robins. 
And whene'er some lucky maiden 
Found a red ear in the husking, 
Found a maize-ear red as blood is, 
" Nushka ! " cried they all together, 
" Nushka ! you shall have a sweetheart, 
You shall have a handsome husband ! " 
" Ugh ! " the old men all responded 
From their seats beneath the pine-trees. 

And whene'er a youth or maiden 
Found a crooked ear in husking, 
Found a maize-ear in the husking 
Blighted, mildewed, or misshapen, 
Then they laughed and sang together, 
Crept and limped about the cornfields, 
Mimicked in their gait and gestures 
Some old man, bent almost double, 
Singing singly or together : 
* Wagemin, the thief of cornfields ! 



Paimosaid, who steals the maize-ear ! " 

Till the cornfields rang with laughter, 
Till from Hiawatha's wigwam 
Kahgahgee, the King of Havens, 
Screamed and quivered in his anger, 
And from all the neighboring tree-tops 
Cawed and croaked the black marauders 
" Ugli ! " the old men all responded, 
From their seats beneath the pine-trees 2 



XIV 

PICTURE-WRITING 

In those days said Hiawatha, 

" Lo ! how all things fade and perish I 

From the memory of the old men 

Pass away the great traditions, 

The achievements of the warriors, 

The adventures of the hunters, 

All the wisdom of the Medas, 

All the craft of the Wabenos, 

All the marvellous dreams and visions 

Of the Jossakeeds, the Prophets ! 

" Great men die and are forgotten, 
Wise men speak ; their words of wisdcs 
Perish in the ears that hear them, 
Do not reach the generations 
That, as yet unborn, are waiting 
In the great, mysterious darkness 
Of the speechless days that shall be ! 

" On the grave-posts of our fathers 
Are no signs, no figures painted ; 
Who are in those graves we know not 
Only know they are our fathers. 
Of what kith they are and kindred, 
From what old, ancestral Totem, 
Be it Eagle, Bear, or Beaver, 
They descended, this we know not, 
Only know they are our fathers. 

" Face to face we speak together, 
But we cannot speak when absent, 
Cannot send our voices from us 
To the friends that dwell afar off ; 
Cannot send a secret message, 
But the bearer learns our secret, 
May pervert it, may betray it, 
May reveal it unto others." 

Thus said Hiawatha, walking 
In the solitary forest, 
Pondering, musing in the forest, 
On the welfare of his people. 

From his pouch he took his colors^ 
Took his paints of different colors, 



I4t> 



THE SONG OF HIAWATHA 



On the smooth bark of a birch-tree 
Painted many shapes and figures, 
Wonderful and mystic figures,- 
And each figure had a meaning, 
Each some word or thought suggested. 

G-itche Manito the Mighty, 
He, the Master of Life, was painted 
As an egg, with points projecting 
To the four winds of the heavens. 
Everywhere is the Great Spirit, 
Was the meaning of this symbol. 

Mitche Manito the Mighty, 
He the dreadful Spirit of Evil, 
As a serpent was depicted, 
As Kenabeek, the great serpent. 
Very crafty, very cunning, 
Is the creeping Spirit of Evil, 
Was the meaning of this symbol. 

Life and Death he drew as circles, 
Life was white, but Death was darkened ; 
Sun and moon and stars he painted, 
Man and beast, and fish and reptile, 
Forests, mountains, lakes, and rivers. 

For the earth he drew a straight line, 
For the sky a bow above it ; 
White the space between for daytime, 
Filled with little stars for night-time ; 
On the left a point for sunrise, 
On the right a point for sunset, 
On the top a point for noontide, 
And for rain and cloudy weather 
Waving lines descending from it. 

Footprints pointing towards a wigwam 
Were a sign of invitation, 
Were a sign of guests assembling ; 
Bloody hands with palms uplifted 
Were a symbol of destruction, 
Were a hostile sign and symbol. 

All these things did Hiawatha 
Show unto his wondering people, 
And interpreted their meaning, 
And he said : " Behold, your grave-posts 
Have no mark, no sign, nor symbol, 
Go and paint them all with figures ; 
Each one with its household symbol, 
With its own ancestral Totem ; 
So that those who follow after 
May distinguish them and know them." 

And they painted on the grave-posts 
On the graves yet unforgotten, 
Each his own ancestral Totem, 
Each the symbol of his household ; 
Figures of the Bear and Reindeer, 
Of the Turtle, Crane, and Beaver, 
Each inverted as a token 



That the owner was departed, 
That the chief who bore the symbol 
Lay beneath in dust and ashes. 

And the Jossakeeds, the Prophets, 
The Wabenos, the Magicians, 
And the Medicine-men, the Medas, 
Painted upon bark and deer-skin 
Figures for the songs they chanted, 
For each song a separate symbol, 
Figures mystical and awful, 
Figures strange and brightly colored I 
And each figure had its meaning, 
Each some magic song suggested. 

The Great Spirit, the Creator, 
Flashing light through all the heaven f 
The Great Serpent, the Kenabeek, 
With his bloody crest erected, 
Creeping, looking into heaven ; 
In the sky the sun, that listens, 
And the moon eclipsed and dying ; 
Owl and eagle, crane and hen-hawk, 
And the cormorant, bird of magic ; 
Headless men, that walk the heavens, 
Bodies lying pierced with arrows, 
Bloody hands of death uplifted, 
Flags on graves, and great war-captaiffi 
Grasping both the earth and heaven ! 

Such as these the shapes they painted 
On the birch-bark and the deer-skin ; 
Songs of war and songs of hunting, 
Songs of medicine and of magic, 
All were written in these figures, 
For each figure had its meaning, 
Each its separate song recorded. 

Nor forgotten was the Love-Song, 
The most subtle of all medicines, 
The most potent spell of magic, 
Dangerous more than war or hunting f. 
Thus the Love-Song was recorded, 
Symbol and interpretation. 

First a human figure standing, 
Painted in the brightest scarlet ; 
'T is the lover, the musician, 
And the meaning is, " My painting 
Makes me powerful over others." 

Then the figure seated, singing, 
Playing on a drum of magic, 
And the interpretation, " Listen ! 
'T is my voice you hear, my singing ! H 

Then the same red figure seated 
In the shelter of a wigwam, 
And the meaning of the symbol, 
" I will come and sit beside you 
In the mystery of my passion ! " 

Then two figures, man and woman, 



THE SONG OF HIAWATHA 



H7 



Standing hand in hand together 
With their hands so clasped together 
That they seemed in one united, 
And the words thus represented 
Are, " I see your heart within you, 
And your cheeks are red with blushes ! " 

Next the maiden on an island, 
In the centre of an island ; 
And the song this shape suggested 
Was, " Though you were at a distance, 
Were upon some far-off island, 
Such the spell I cast upon you, 
Such the magic power of passion, 
I could straightway draw you to me ! " 

Then the figure of the maiden 
Sleeping, and the lover near her, 
Whispering to her in her slumbers, 
Saying, " Though you were far from me 
In the land of Sleep and Silence, 
Still the voice of love would reach you ! " 

And the last of all the figures 
Was a heart within a circle, 
Drawn within a magic circle ; 
And the image had this meaning : 
" Naked lies your heart before me, 
To your naked heart I whisper ! " 

Thus it was that Hiawatha, 
In his wisdom, taught the people 
All the mysteries of painting, 
All the art of Picture- Writing, 
On the smooth bark of the birch-tree, 
On the white skin of the reindeer, 
On the grave-posts of the village. 



XV 

HIAWATHA'S LAMENTATION 

In those days the Evil Spirits, 
All the Manitos of mischief, 
Fearing Hiawatha's wisdom, 
And his love for Chibiabos, 
Jealous of their faithful friendship, 
And their noble words and actions, 
Made at length a league against them, 
To molest them and destroy them. 

Hiawatha, wise and wary, 
Often said to Chibiabos, 
" O my brother ! do not leave me, 
Lest the Evil Spirits harm you ! " 
Chibiabos, young and heedless, 
Laughing shook his coal-black tresses, 
Answered ever sweet and childlike, 



" Do not fear for me, O brother ! 
Harm and evil come not near me ! " 

Once when Peboan, the Winter, 
Roofed with ice the Big-Sea- Water, 
When the snow-flakes, whirling downward, 
Hissed among the withered oak-leaves, 
Changed the pine-trees into wigwams, 
Covered all the earth with silence, — 
Armed with arrows, shod with snow-shoeSj 
Heeding not his brother's warning, 
Fearing not the Evil Spirits, 
Forth to hunt the deer with antlers 
All alone went Chibiabos. 

Right across the Big-Sea- Water 
Sprang with speed the deer before him. 
With the wind and snow he followed, 
O'er the treacherous ice he followed, 
Wild with all the fierce commotion 
And the rapture of the hunting. 

But beneath, the Evil Spirits 
Lay in ambush, waiting for him, 
Broke the treacherous ice beneath him, 
Dragged him downward to the bottom, 
Buried in the sand his body. 
Unktahee, the god of water, 
He the god of the Dacotahs, 
Drowned him in the deep abysses 
Of the lake of Gitche Gumee. 

From the headlands Hiawatha 
Sent forth such a wail of anguish, 
Such a fearful lamentation, 
That the bison paused to listen, 
And the wolves howled from the prairies, 
And the thunder in the distance 
Starting answered " Baim-wawa ! " 

Then his face with black he painted, 
With his robe his head he covered, 
In his wigwam sat lamenting, 
Seven long weeks he sat lamenting, 
Uttering still this moan of sorrow : — 

" He is dead, the sweet musician I 
He the sweetest of all singers ! 
He has gone from us forever, 
He has moved a little nearer 
To the Master of all music, 
To the Master of all singing ! 
O my brother, Chibiabos ! " 

And the melancholy fir-trees 
Waved their dark green fans above himj 
Waved their purple cones above him, 
Sighing with him to console him, 
Mingling with his lamentation 
Their complaining, their lamenting. 

Came the Spring, and all the forest 
Looked in vain for Chibiabos : 



THE SONG OF HIAWATHA 



Sighed the rivulet, Sebowisha, 
Sighed the rushes in the meadow. 

From the tree-tops sang the bluebird, 
Sang the bluebird, the Ovvaissa, 
" Chibiabos ! Chibiabos ! 
He is dead, the sweet musician ! " 

From the wigwam sang the robin, 
Sang the robin, the Opechee, 
" Chibiabos ! Chibiabos ! 
He is dead, the sweetest singer ! " 

And at night through all the forest 
Went the whippoorwill complaining, 
Wailing went the Wawonaissa, 
" Chibiabos ! Chibiabos ! 
He is dead, the sweet musician ! 
He the sweetest of all singers ! " 

Then the Medicine-men, the Medas, 
The magicians, the Wabenos, 
And the Jossakeeds, the Prophets, 
Came to visit Hiawatha ; 
Built a Sacred Lodge beside him, 
To appease him, to console him, 
Walked in silent, grave procession, 
Bearing each a pouch of healing, 
Skin of beaver, lynx, or otter, 
Filled with magic roots and simples, 
Filled with very potent medicines. 

When he heard their steps approaching, 
Hiawatha ceased lamenting, 
Called no more on Chibiabos ; 
Naught he questioned, naught he answered, 
But his mournful head uncovered, 
From his face the mourning colors 
Washed he slowly and in silence, 
Slowly and in silence followed 
Onward to the Sacred Wigwam. 

There a magic drink they gave him, 
Made of Nahma-wusk, the spearmint, 
And Wabeno-wusk, the yarrow, 
Roots of power, and herbs of healing ; 
Beat their drums, and shook their rattles ; 
Chanted singly and in chorus, 
Mystic songs like these, they chanted. 

" I myself, myself ! behold me ! 
'T is the great Gray Eagle talking ; 
Come, ye white crows, come and hear him ! 
The loud-speaking thunder helps me ; 
All the unseen spirits help me ; 
I can hear their voices calling, 
All around the sky I hear them ! 
I can blow you strong, my brother, 
I can heal you, Hiawatha ! " 

" Hi-au-ha ! " replied the chorus, 
* Way-ha-way ! " the mystic chorus. 
« Friends of mine are all the serpents ! 



Hear me shake my skin of hen-hawk I 

Mahng, the white loon, I can kill him ; 

I can shoot your heart and kill it ! 

I can blow you strong, my brother, 

I can heal you, Hiawatha ! " 

" Hi-au-ha ! " replied the chorus. 

" Way-ha-way ! " the mystic chorus. 
" I myself, myself ! the prophet ! 

When I speak the wigwam trembles,; 

Shakes the Sacred Lodge with termors, 

Hands unseen begin to shake it ! 

When I walk, the sky I tread on 

Bends and makes a noise beneath me ! 

I can blow you strong, my brother ! 

Rise and speak, O Hiawatha ! " 
" Hi-au-ha ! " replied the chorus > 

" Way-ha-way ! " the mystic chorus 

Then they shook their medicine-pjUfih^g 
O'er the head of Hiawatha, 
Danced their medicine-dance around 
And upstarting wild and haggard 
Like a man from dreams awakened, 
He was healed of all his madness. 
As the clouds are swept from heaven 
Straightway from his brain departed 
All his moody melancholy ; 
As the ice is swept from rivers, 
Straightway from his heart departed 
All his sorrow and affliction. 

Then they summoned Chibiabos 
From his grave beneath the waters, 
From the sands of Gitche Gumee 
Summoned Hiawatha's brother. 
And so mighty was the magic 
Of that cry and invocation, 
That he heard it as he lay there 
Underneath the Big-Sea-Water ; 
From the sand he rose and listened, 
Heard the music and the singing, 
Came, obedient to the summons, 
To the doorway of the wigwam, 
But to enter they forbade him. 

Through a chink a coal they gave him 
Through the door a burning fire-brand ; 
Ruler in the Land of Spirits, 
Ruler o'er the dead, they made him, 
Telling him a fire to kindle 
For all those that died thereafter, 
Camp-fires for their night encampments 
On their solitary journey 
To the kingdom of Ponemah, 
To the land of the Hereafter. 

From the village of his childhood, 
From the homes of those who knew him 9 
Passing silent through the forest, 



THE SONG OF HIAWATHA 



149 



Like a smoke-wreath wafted sideways, 

Slowly vanished Chibiabos ! 

Where he passed, the branches moved not, 

Where he trod, the grasses bent not, 

And the fallen leaves of last year 

Made no sound beneath his footsteps. 

Four whole days he journeyed onward 
Down the pathway of the dead men ; 
On the dead-man's strawberry feasted, 
Crossed the melancholy river, 
On the swinging log he crossed it, 
Came unto the Lake of Silver, 
In the Stone Canoe was carried 
To the Islands of the Blessed, 
To the land of ghosts and shadows. 

On that journey, moving slowly, 
Many weary spirits saw he, 
Panting under heavy burdens, 
Laden with war-clubs, bows and arrows, 
Robes of fur, and pots and kettles, 
And with food that friends had given 
For that solitary journey. 

" Ay ! why do the living," said they, 
" Lay such heavy burdens on us ! 
Better were it to go naked, 
Better were it to go fasting, 
Than to bear such heavy burdens 
On our long and weary journey ! " 

Forth then issued Hiawatha, 
Wandered eastward, wandered westward, 
Teaching men the use of simples 
And the antidotes for poisons, 
And the cure of all diseases. 
Thus was first made known to mortals 
All the mystery of Medamin, 
All the sacred art of healing. 



XVI 

PAU-PUK-KEEWIS 

You shall hear how Pau-Puk-Keewis, 
He, the handsome Yenadizze, 
Whom the people called the Storm-Fool, 
Vexed the village with disturbance; 
3Tou shall hear of all his mischief, 
And his flight from Hiawatha, 
And his wondrous transmigrations, 
And the end of his adventures. 

On the shores of Gitche Gumee, 
On the dunes of Nagow Wudjoo, 
By the shining Big-Sea- Water 
Stood the lodge of Pau-Puk-Keewis. 
It was he who in his frenzy 



Whirled these drifting sands together, 
On the dunes of Nagow Wudjoo, 
When, among the guests assembled, 
He so merrily and madly 
Danced at Hiawatha's wedding, 
Danced the Beggar's Dance to please 
them. 

Now, in search of new adventures, 
From his lodge went Pau-Puk-Keewis, 
Came with speed into the village, 
Found the young men all assembled 
In the lodge of old Iagoo, 
Listening to his monstrous stories, 
To his wonderful adventures. 

He was telling them the story 
Of Ojeeg, the Summer-Maker, 
How he made a hole in heaven, 
How he climbed up into heaven, 
And let out the summer-weather, 
The perpetual, pleasant Summer ; 
How the Otter first essayed it ; 
How the Beaver, Lynx, and Badger 
Tried in turn the great achievement, 
From the summit of the mountain 
Smote their fists against the heavens, 
Smote against the sky their foreheads, 
Cracked the sky, but could not break it 3 
How the Wolverine, uprising, 
Made him ready for the encounter, 
Bent his knees down, like a squirrel, 
Drew his arms back, like a cricket. 

" Once he leaped," said old Iagoo, 
" Once he leaped, and lo ! above him 
Bent the sky, as ice in rivers 
When the waters rise beneath it ; 
Twice he leaped, and lo ! above him 
Cracked the sky, as ice in rivers 
When the freshet is at highest ! 
Thrice he leaped, and lo ! above him 
Broke the shattered sky asunder, 
And he disappeared within it, 
And Ojeeg, the Fisher Weasel, 
With a bound went in behind him ! " 

" Hark you ! " shouted Pau-Puk-Keewis 
As he entered at the doorway ; 
" I am tired of all this talking, 
Tired of old Iagoo's stories, 
Tired of Hiawatha's wisdom. 
Here is something to amuse you, 
Better than this endless talking." 

Then from out his pouch of wolf-skin 
Forth he drew, with solemn manner, 
All the game of Bowl and Counters, 
Pugasaing, with thirteen pieces. 
White on one side were they painted. 



ISO 



THE SONG OF HIAWATHA 



And vermilion on the other ; 

Two Kenabeeks or great serpents, 

Two Ininewug or wedge-men, 

One great war-club, Pugamaugun, 

And one slender fish, the Keego, 

Four round pieces, Ozawabeeks, 

And three Sheshebwug or ducklings. 

All were made of bone and painted, 

All except the Ozawabeeks ; 

These were brass, on one side burnished, 

And were black upon the other. 

In a wooden bowl he placed them, 
Shook and jostled them together, 
Threw them on the ground before him, 
Thus exclaiming and explaining : 
" Red side up are all the pieces, 
And one great Kenabeek standing 
On the bright side of a brass piece, 
On a burnished Ozawabeek ; 
Thirteen tens and eight are counted." 

Then again he shook the pieces, 
Shook and jostled them together, 
Threw them on the ground before him, 
Still exclaiming and explaining : 
" White are both the great Kenabeeks, 
White the Ininewug, the wedge-men. 
Red are all the other pieces ; 
Five tens and an eight are counted." 

Thus he taught the game of hazard, 
Thus displayed it and explained it, 
Running through its various chances, 
Various changes, various meanings : 
Twenty curious eyes stared at him, 
Full of eagerness stared at him. 

" Many games," said old Iagoo, 
" Many games of skill and hazard 
Have I seen in different nations, 
Have I played in different countries. 
He who plays with old Iagoo 
Must have very nimble fingers ; 
Though you think yourself so skilful, 
I can beat you, Pau-Puk-Keewis, 
I can even give you lessons 
In your game of Bowl and Counters ! " 

So they sat and played together, 
All the old men and the young men, 
Played for dresses, weapons, wampum, 
Played till midnight, played till morning, 
Played until the Yenaclizze, 
Till the cunning Pau-Puk-Keewis, 
Of their treasures had despoiled them, 
Of the best of all their dresses, 
Shirts of deer-skin, robes of ermine, 
Belts of wampum, crests of feathers, 
Warlike weapons, pipes and pouches. 



Twenty eyes glared wildly at him, 
Like the eyes of wolves glared at him* 

Said the lucky Pau-Puk-Keewis : 
" In my wigwam I am lonely, 
In my wanderings and adventures 
I have need of a companion, 
Fain would have a Meshinauwa, 
An attendant and pipe-bearer. 
I will venture all these winnings, 
All these garments heapett about me, 
All this wampum, all these feathers, 
On a single throw will venture 
All against the young man yonder ! " 
'T was a youth of sixteen summers, 
'T was a nephew of Iagoo ; 
Face-in-a-Mist, the people called him. 

As the fire burns in a pipe-head 
Dusky red beneath the ashes, 
So beneath his shaggy eyebrows 
Glowed the eyes of old Iagoo. 
" Ugh ! " he answered very fiercely ; 
" Ugh ! " they answered all and each on®. 

Seized the wooden bowl the old man, 
Closely in his bony fingers 
Clutched the fatal bowl, Onagon, 
Shook it fiercely and with fury, 
Made the pieces ring together 
As he threw them down before him. 

Red were both the great Kenabeeks, 
Red the Ininewug, the wedge-men, 
Red the Sheshebwug, the ducklings, 
Black the four brass Ozawabeeks, 
White alone the fish, the Keego ; 
Only five the pieces counted ! 

Then the smiling Pau-Puk-Keewis 
Shook the bowl and threw the pieces ,4 
Lightly in the air he tossed them, 
And they fell about him scattered ; 
Dark and bright the Ozawabeeks, 
Red and white the other pieces, 
And upright among the others 
One Ininewug was standing, 
Even as crafty Pau-Puk-Keewis 
Stood alone among the players, 
Saying, " Five tens ! mine the game is i 

Twenty eyes glared at him fiercely, 
Like the eyes of wolves glared at him, 
As he turned and left the wigwam, 
Followed by his Meshinauwa, 
By the nephew of Iagoo, 
By the tall and graceful stripling, 
Bearing in his arms the winnings, 
Shirts of deer-skin, robes of ermine, 
Belts of wampum, pipes and weapons. 

" Carry them," said Pau-Puk-Keewis, 



THE SONG OF HIAWATHA 



i* 



Pointing with his fan of feathers, 
" To my wigwam far to eastward, 
On the dunes of Nagow Wudjoo ! " 

Hot and red with smoke and gambling 
Were the eyes of Pau-Puk-Keewis 
As he came forth to the freshness 
Of the pleasant Summer morning. 
All the birds were singing gayly, 
All the streamlets flowing swiftly, 
And the heart of Pau-Puk-Keewis 
Sang with pleasure as the birds sing, 
Beat with triumph like the streamlets, 
As he wandered through the village, 
In the early gray of morning, 
With his fan of turkey-feathers, 
With his plumes and tufts of swan's down, 
Till he reached the farthest wigwam, 
Reached the lodge of Hiawatha. 

Silent was it and deserted ; 
No one met him at the doorway, 
No one came to bid him welcome ; 
But the birds were singing round it, 
In and out and round the doorway, 
Hopping, singing, fluttering, feeding, 
And aloft upon the ridge-pole 
Kahgahgee, the King of Ravens, 
Sat with fiery eyes, and, screaming, 
Flapped his wings at Pau-Puk-Keewis. 

" All are gone ! the lodge is empty ! " 
Thus it was spake Pau-Puk-Keewis, 
In his heart resolving mischief ; — 
i Gone is wary Hiawatha, 
Gone the silly Laughing Water, 
Gone Nokornis, the old woman, 
And the lodge is left unguarded ! " 

By the neck he seized the raven, 
Whirled it round him like a rattle, 
Like a medicine-pouch he shook it, 
Strangled Kahgahgee, ths raven, 
From the ridge-pole of the wigwam 
Left its lifeless body hanging, 
As an insult to its master, 
As a taunt to Hiawatha. 

With a stealthy step he entered, 
Round the lodge in wild disorder 
Threw the household things about him, 
Piled together in confusion 
Bowls of wood and earthen kettles, 
Robes of buffalo and beaver, 
Skins of otter, lynx, and ermine, 
As an insult to Nokomis, 
As a taunt to Minnehaha. 

Then departed Pau-Puk-Keewis, 
Whistling, singing through the forest, 
Whistling gayly to the squirrels, 



Who from hollow boughs above him 
Dropped their acorn-shells upon him, 
Singing gayly to the wood birds, 
Who from out the leafy darkness 
Answered with a song as merry. 

Then he climbed the rocky headlands, 
Looking o'er the Gitche Gumee, 
Perched himself upon their summit, 
Waiting full of mirth and mischief 
The return of Hiawatha. 

Stretched upon his back he lay there ; 
Far below him plashed the waters, 
Plashed and washed the dreamy waters ; 
Far above him swam the heavens, 
Swam the dizzy, dreamy heavens ; 
Round him hovered, fluttered, rustled 
Hiawatha's mountain chickens, 
Flock-wise swept and wheeled about him, 
Almost brushed him with their pinions. 

And he killed them as he lay there, 
Slaughtered them by tens and twenties, 
Threw their bodies down the headland, 
Threw them on the beach below him, 
Till at length Kayoshk, the sea-gull, 
Perched upon a crag above them, 
Shouted : " It is Pau-Puk-Keewis ! 
He is slaying us by hundreds ! 
Send a message to our brother, 
Tidings send to Hiawatha ! " 



XVII 

THE HUNTING OF PAU-PUK-KEEWIS 

Full of wrath was Hiawatha 
When he came into the village, 
Found the people in confusion, 
Heard of all the misdemeanors, 
All the malice and the mischief, 
Of the cunning Pau-Puk-Keewis. 

Hard his breath came through his nos- 
trils, 
Through his teeth he buzzed and muttered 
Words of anger and resentment, 
Hot and humming, like a hornet. 
" I will slay this Pau-Puk-Keewis, 
Slay this mischief-maker ! " said he. 
" Not so long and wide the world is, 
Not so rude and rough the way is, 
That my wrath shall not attain him, 
That my vengeance shall not reach him 1 n 

Then in swift pursuit departed 
Hiawatha and the hunters 
On the trail of Pau-Puk-Keewis, 



152 



THE SONG OF HIAWATHA 



Through the forest, where he passed it, 

To the headlands where he rested ; 

But they found not Pau-Puk-Keewis, 

Only in the trampled grasses, 

In the whortleberry-bushes, 

Found the couch where he had rested, 

Found the impress of his body. 

From the lowlands far beneath them, 
From the Muskoday, the meadow, 
Pau-Puk-Keewis, turning backward, 
Made a gesture of defiance, 
Made a gesture of derision ; 
And aloud cried Hiawatha, 
From the summit of the mountains : 
" Not so long and wide the world is, 
Not so rude and rough the way is, 
But my wrath shall overtake you, 
And my vengeance shall attain you ! " 

Over rock and over river, 
Thorough bush, and brake, and forest, 
Ran the cunning Pau-Puk-Keewis ; 
Like an antelope he bounded, 
Till he came unto a streamlet 
In the middle of the forest, 
To a streamlet still and tranquil, 
That had overflowed its margin, 
To a dam made by the beavers, 
To a pond of quiet water, 
Where knee-deep the trees were standing, 
Where the water-lilies floated, 
W here the rushes waved and whispered. 

On the dam stood Pau-Puk-Keewis, 
On the dam of trunks and branches, 
Through whose chinks the water spouted, 
O'er whose summit flowed the streamlet. 
From the bottom rose the beaver, 
Looked with two great eyes of wonder, 
Eyes that seemed to ask a question, 
At the stranger, Pau-Puk-Keewis. 

On the dam stood Pau-Puk-Keewis, 
O'er his ankles flowed the streamlet, 
Flowed the bright and silvery water, 
And he spake unto the beaver, 
With a smile he spake in this wise : 

" O my friend Ahmeek, the beaver, 
Cool and pleasant is the water ; 
Let me dive into the water, 
Let me rest there in your lodges ; 
Change me, too, into a beaver ! " 

Cautiously replied the beaver, 
With reserve he thus made answer : 
" Let me first consult the others, 
Let me ask the other beavers." 
Down he sank into the water, 
Heavily sank he, as a stone sinks, 



Down among the leaves and branches, 
Brown and matted at the bottom. 

On the dam stood Pau-Puk-Keewis, 
O'er his ankles flowed the streamlet, 
Spouted through the chinks below Kirn 
Dashed upon the stones beneath him, 
Spread serene and calm before him, 
And the sunshine and the shadows 
Fell in flecks and gleams upon him, 
Fell in little shining patches, 
Through the waving, rustling branches* 

From the bottom rose the beavers, 
Silently above the surface 
Rose one head and then another, 
Till the pond seemed full of beavers, 
Full of black and shining faces. 

To the beavers Pau-Puk-Keewis 
Spake entreating, said in this wise : 
" Very pleasant is your dwelling, 
O my friends ! and safe from danger ; 
Can you not, with all your cunning, 
All your wisdom and contrivance, 
Change me, too, into a beaver ? " 

" Yes ! " replied Ahmeek, the beaver, 
He the King of all the beavers, 
" Let yourself slide down among us, 
Down into the tranquil water." 

Down into the pond among them 
Silently sank Pau-Puk-Keewis ; 
Black became his shirt of deer-skin, 
Black his moccasins and leggings, 
In a broad black tail behind him 
Spread his fox-tails and his fringes ; 
He was changed into a beaver. 

" Make me large," said Pau-Puk-Keewi% 
" Make me large and make me larger, 
Larger than the other beavers." 
"Yes," the beaver chief responded, 
" When our lodge below you enter, 
In our wigwam we will make you 
Ten times larger than the others." 

Thus into the clear, brown water 
Silently sank Pau-Puk-Keewis : 
Found the bottom covered over 
With the trunks of trees and branches, 
Hoards of food against the winter, 
Piles and heaps against the famine ; 
Found the lodge with arching doorway, 
Leading into spacious chambers. 

Here they made him large and larger, 
Made him largest of the beavers, 
Ten times larger than the others. 
" You shall be our ruler," said they ; 
" Chief and King of all the beavers." 

But not long had Pau-Puk-Keewis 






THE SONG OF HIAWATHA 



*53 



Sat in state among the beavers, 
When there came a voice of warning 
From the watchman at his station 
in the water-flags and lilies, 
Saying, " Here is Hiawatha ! 
Hiawatha with his hunters ! " 

Then they heard a cry above them, 
Heard a shouting and a tramping, 
Heard a crashing and a rushing, 
And the water round and o'er them 
Sank and sucked away in eddies, 
A.nd they knew their dam was broken. 

On the lodge's roof the hunters 
Leaped, and broke it all asunder ; 
Streamed the sunshiue through the crevice, 
Sprang the beavers through the doorway, 
Hid themselves in deeper water, 
In the channel of the streamlet ; 
But the mighty Pau-Puk-Keewis 
Could not pass beneath the doorway ; 
He was puffed with pride and feeding, 
He was swollen like a bladder. 

Through the roof looked Hiawatha, 
Cried aloud, " O Pau-Puk-Keewis ! 
Vain are all your craft and cunning, 
Vain your manifold disguises ! 
Well I know you, Pau-Puk-Keewis ! " 
With their clubs they beat and bruised 

him, 
Beat to death poor Pau-Puk-Keewis, 
Pounded him as maize is pounded, 
Till his skull was crushed to pieces. 

Six tall hunters, lithe and limber, 
Bore him home on poles and branches, 
Bore the body of the beaver ; 
But the ghost, the Jeebi in him, 
Thought and felt as Pau-Puk-Keewis, 
Still lived on as Pau-Puk-Keewis. 

And it fluttered, strove, and struggled, 
Waving hither, waving thither, 
As the curtains of a wigwam 
Struggle with their thongs of deer-skin, 
When the wintry wind is blowing ; 
Till it drew itself together, 
Till it rose up from the body, 
Till it took the form and features 
Of the cunning Pau-Puk-Keewis 
Vanishing into the forest. 

But the wary Hiawatha 
Saw the figure ere it vanished, 
Saw the form of Pau-Puk-Keewis 
Glide into the soft blue shadow 
Of the pine-trees of the forest ; 
Toward the squares of white beyond it, 
Toward an opening in the forest, 



Like a wind it rushed and panted, 
Bending all the boughs before it, 
And behind it, as the rain comes 
Came the steps of Hiawatha. 

To a lake with many islands 
Came the breathless Pau-Puk-Keewis, 
Where among the water-lilies 
Pishnekuh, the brant, were sailing ; 
Through the tufts of rushes floating, 
Steering through the reedy islands. 
Now their broad black beaks they lifted. 
Now they plunged beneath the water, 
Now they darkened in the shadow, 
Now they brightened in the sunshine. 

" Pishnekuh ! " cried Pau-Puk-Keewis, 
" Pishnekuh ! my brothers ! " said he, 
" Change me to a brant with plumage, 
With a shining neck and feathers, 
Make me large, and make me larger, 
Ten times larger than the others." 

Straightway to a brant they changed hiia 
With two huge and dusky pinions, 
With a bosom smooth and rounded, 
With a bill like two great paddles, 
Made him larger than the others, 
Ten times larger than the largest, 
Just as, shouting from the forest, 
On the shore stood Hiawatha. 

Up they rose with cry and clamor, 
With a whir and beat of pinions, 
Rose up from the reedy islands, 
From the water-flags and lilies. 
And they said to Pau-Puk-Keewis : 
" In your flying, look not downward, 
Take good heed and look not downward, 
Lest some strange mischance should hap 

pen, 
Lest some great mishap befall you ! " 

Fast and far they fled to northward, 
Fast and far through mist and sunshine 
Fed among the moors and fen-lands, 
Slept among the reeds and rushes. 

On the morrow as they journeyed, 
Buoyed and lifted by the South-wind, 
Wafted onward by the South-wind, 
Blowing fresh and strong behind them, 
Rose a sound of human voices, 
Rose a clamor from beneath them, 
From the lodges of a village, 
From the people miles beneath them. 

For the people of the village 
Saw the flock of brant with wonder, 
Saw the wings of Pau-Puk-Keewis 
Flapping far up in the ether, 
Broader than two doorway curtains. 



154 



THE SONG OF HIAWATHA 



Pau-Puk-Keewis heard the shouting, 
Knew the voice of Hiawatha, 
Knew the outcry of Iagoo, 
And, forgetful of the warning, 
Drew his neck in, and looked downward, 
And the wind that blew behind him 
Caught his mighty fan of feathers, 
Sent him wheeling, whirling downward ! 

All in vain did Pau-Puk-Keewis 
Struggle to regain his balance ! 
Whirling round and round and downward, 
He beheld in turn the village 
And in turn the flock above him, 
Saw the village coming nearer, 
And the flock receding farther, 
Heard the voices growing louder, 
Heard the shouting and the laughter ; 
Saw no more the flocks above him, 
Only saw the earth beneath him ; 
Dead out of the empty heaven, 
Dead among the shouting people, 
With a heavy sound and sullen, 
Fell the brant with broken pinions. 

But his soul, his ghost, his shadow, 
Still survived as Pau-Puk-Keewis, 
Took again the form and features 
Of the handsome Yenadizze, 
And again went rushing onward, 
Followed fast by Hiawatha, 
Crying : " Not so wide the world is, 
Not so long and rough the way is, 
But my wrath shall overtake you, 
But my vengeance shall attain you ! " 

And so near he came, so near him, 
That his hand was stretched to seize him, 
His right hand to seize and hold him, 
When the cunning Pau-Puk-Keewis 
Whirled and spun about in circles, 
Fanned the air into a whirlwind, 
Danced the dust and leaves about him, 
And amid the whirling eddies 
Sprang into a hollow oak-tree, 
Changed himself into a serpent, 
Gliding out through root and rubbish. 

With his right hand Hiawatha 
Smote amain the hollow oak-tree, 
Rent it into shreds and splinters, 
Left it lying there in fragments. 
But in vain ; for Pau-Puk-Keewis, 
Once again in human figure, 
Full in sight ran on before him, 
Sped away in gust and whirlwind, 
On the shores of Gitche Gumee, 
Westward by the Big-Sea- Water, 
Cany* i*nto the rocky headlands, 



To the Pictured Rocks of sandstone, 
Looking over lake and landscape. 

And the Old Man of the Mountain, 
He the Manito of Mountains, 
Opened wide his rocky doorways, 
Opened wide his deep abysses, 
Giving Pau-Puk-Keewis shelter 
In his caverns dark and dreary, 
Bidding Pau-Puk-Keewis welcome 
To his gloomy lodge of sandstone. 

There without stood Hiawatha, 
Found the doorways closed against him 5 
With his mittens, Minjekahwun, 
Smote great caverns in the sandstone, 
Cried aloud in tones of thunder, 
" Open ! I am Hiawatha ! " 
But the Old Man of the Mountain 
Opened not, and made no answer 
From the silent crags of sandstone, 
From the gloomy rock abysses. 

Then he raised his hands to heaven, 
Called imploring on the tempest, 
Called Waywassimo, the lightning, 
And the thunder, Annemeekee ; 
And they came with night and darknes&„ 
Sweeping down the Big-Sea-Water 
From the distant Thunder Mountains ; 
And the trembling Pau-Puk-Keewis 
Heard the footsteps of the thunder, 
Saw the red eyes of the lightning, 
Was afraid, and crouched and trembled. 

Then Waywassimo, the lightning, 
Smote the doorways of the caverns, 
With his war-club smote the doorways, 
Smote the jutting crags of sandstone, 
And the thunder, Annemeekee, 
Shouted down into the caverns, 
Saying, " Where is Pau-Puk-Keewis ! ™ 
And the crags fell, and beneath them 
Dead among the rocky ruins 
Lay the cunning Pau-Puk-Keewis, 
Lay the handsome Yenadizze, 
Slain in his own human figure. 

Ended were his wild adventures, 
Ended were his tricks and gambols, 
Ended all his craft and cunning, 
Ended all his mischief-making, 
All his gambling and his dancing, 
All his wooing of the maidens. 

Then the noble Hiawatha 
Took his soul, his ghost, his shadow, 
Spake and said : " O Pau-Puk-Keewis, 
Never more in human figure 
Shall you search for new adventures ; 
Never more with jest and laughter 



THE SONG OF HIAWATHA 



'55 



Dance the dust and leaves in whirlwinds ; 
' But above there in the heavens 
You shall soar and sail in circles ; 
I will change you to an eagle, 
To Keneu, the great war-eagle, 
Chief of all the fowls with feathers, 
Chief of Hiawatha's chickens." 

And the name of Pau-Puk-Keewis 
Lingers still among the people, 
Lingers still among the singers, 
And among the story-tellers ; 
And in Winter, when the snow-flakes 
Whirl in eddies round the lodges, 
When the wind in gusty tumult 
O'er the smoke-flue pipes and whistles, 
"There," they cry, "comes Pau-Puk-Kee- 
wis ; 
He is dancing through the village, 
He is gathering in his harvest ! " 



XVIII 

THE DEATH OF KWASIND 

Far and wide among the nations 
Spread the name and fame of Kwasind ; 
No man dared to strive with Kwasind, 
No man could compete with Kwasind. 
But the mischievous Ptik-Wudjies, 
They the envious Little People, 
They the fairies and the pygmies, 
Plotted and conspired against him. 

" If this hateful Kwasind," said they, 
" If this great, outrageous fellow 
Goes on thus a little longer, 
Tearing everything he touches, 
Rending everything to pieces, 
Filling all the world with wonder, 
What becomes of the Puk-Wudjies ? 
Who will care for the Puk-Wudjies ? 
He will tread us down like mushrooms, 
Drive us all into the water, 
Give our bodies to be eaten 
By the wicked Nee-ba-naw-baigs, 
By the Spirits of the water ! " 

So the angry Little People 
All conspired against the Strong Man, 
All conspired to murder Kwasind, 
Yes, to rid the world of Kwasind, 
The audacious, overbearing, 
Heartless, haughty, dangerous Kwasind ! 

Now this wondrous strength of Kwasind 
In his crown alone was seated ; 
In his crown too was his weakness ; 



There alone could he be wounded, 
Nowhere else could weapon pierce him, 
Nowhere else could weapon harm him. 

Even there the only weapon 
That could wound him, that could slay hin> 
Was the seed-cone of the pine-tree, 
Was the blue cone of the fir- tree. 
This was Kvvasind's fatal secret, 
Known to no man among mortals ; 
But the cunning Little People, 
The Puk-Wudjies, knew the secret, 
Knew the only way to kill him. 

So they gathered cones together, 
Gathered seed-cones of the pine-tree, 
Gathered blue cones of the fir-tree, 
In the woods by Taquamenaw, 
Brought them to the river's margin, 
Heaped them in great piles together, 
Where the red rocks from the margin 
Jutting overhang the river. 
There they lay in wait for Kwasind, 
The malicious Little People. 

5 T was an afternoon in Summer ; 
Very hot and still the air was, 
Very smooth the gliding river, 
Motionless the sleeping shadows : 
Insects glistened in the sunshine, 
Insects skated on the water, 
Filled the drowsy air with buzzing, 
With a far resounding war-cry. 

Down the river came the Strong Man, 
In his birch canoe came Kwasind, 
Floating slowly down the current 
Of the sluggish Taquamenaw, 
Very languid with the weather, 
Very sleepy with the silence. 

From the overhanging branches, 
From the tassels of the birch-trees, 
Soft the Spirit of Sleep descended ; 
By his airy hosts surrounded, 
His invisible attendants, 
Came the Spirit of Sleep, Nepahwin ; 
Like a burnished Dush-kwo-ne-she, 
Like a dragon-fly, he hovered 
O'er the drowsy head of Kwasind. 

To his ear there came a murmur 
As of waves upon a sea-shore, 
As of far-off tumbling waters, 
As of winds among the pine-trees ; 
And he felt upon his forehead 
Blows of little airy war-clubs, 
Wielded by the slumbrous legions 
Of the Spirit of Sleep, Nepahwin, 
As of some one breathing on him. 

At the first blow of their war-clubs, 



I 5 6 



THE SONG OF HIAWATHA 



Fell a drowsiness on Kwasind ; 
At the second blow they smote him, 
Motionless his paddle rested ; 
At the third, before his vision 
Reeled the landscape into darkness, 
Very sound asleep was Kwasind. 

So he floated down the river, 
Like a blind man seated upright, 
Floated down the Taquamenaw, 
Underneath the trembling birch-trees, 
Underneath the wooded headlands, 
Underneath the war encampment 
Of the pygmies, the Puk-Wudjies. 

There they stood, all armed and waiting, 
Hurled the pine-cones down upon him, 
Struck him on his brawny shoulders, 
On his crown defenceless struck him. 
" Death to Kwasind ! " was the sudden 
War-cry of the Little People. 

And he sideways swayed and tumbled, 
Sideways fell into the river, 
Plunged beneath the sluggish water 
Headlong, as an otter plunges ; 
And the birch canoe, abandoned, 
Drifted empty down the river, 
Bottom upward swerved and drifted : 
Nothing more was seen of Kwasind. 

But the memory of the Strong Man 
Lingered long among the people, 
And whenever through the forest 
Raged and roared the wintry tempest, 
And the branches, tossed and troubled, 
Creaked and groaned and split asunder, 
" Kwasind ! " cried they; " that is Kwasind ! 
He is gathering in his fire-wood ! " 



XIX 

THE GHOSTS 

Never stoops the soaring vulture 
On his quarry in the desert, 
On the sick or wounded bison, 
But another vulture, watching 
From his high aerial look-out, 
Sees the downward plunge, and follows 
And a third pursues the second, 
Coming from the invisible ether, 
First a speck, and then a vulture, 
Till the air is dark with pinions. 
So disasters come not singly ; 
But as if they watched and waited, 
Scanning one another's motions, 
When the first descends, the others 



Follow, follow, gathering flock- wise 
Round their victim, sick and wounded, 
First a shadow, then a sorrow, 
Till the air is dark with anguish. 

Now, o'er all the dreary North-land, 
Mighty Peboan, the Winter, 
Breathing on the lakes and rivers, 
Into stone had changed their waters. 
From his hair he shook the snow-flakes, 
Till the plains were strewn with whiteness 
One uninterrupted level, 
As if, stooping, the Creator 
With his hand had smoothed them over. 

Through the forest, wide and wailing, 
Roamed the hunter on his snow-shoes ; 
In the village worked the women, 
Pounded maize, or dressed the deer-skin ; 
And the young men played together 
On the ice the noisy ball-play, 
On the plain the dance of snow-shoes. 

One dark evening, after sundown, 
In her wigwam Laughing Water 
Sat with old Nokomis, waiting 
For the steps of Hiawatha 
Homeward from the hunt returning. 

On their faces gleamed the firelight, 
Painting them with streaks of crimson, 
In the eyes of old Nokomis 
Glimmered like the watery moonlight, 
In the eyes of Laughing Water 
Glistened like the sun in water ; 
And behind them crouched their shadows 
In the corners of the wigwam, 
And the smoke in wreaths above them 
Climbed and crowded through the smoke 
flue. 

Then the curtain of the doorway 
From without was slowly lifted ; 
Brighter glowed the fire a moment, 
And a moment swerved the smoke-wreath 
As two women entered softly, 
Passed the doorway uninvited, 
Without word of salutation, 
Without sign of recognition, 
Sat down in the farthest corner, 
Crouching low among the shadows. 

From their aspect and their garments, 
Strangers seemed they in the village ; 
Very pale and haggard were they, 
As they sat there sad and silent, 
Trembling, cowering with the shadows. 

Was it the wind above the smoke-flue. 
Muttering down into the wigwam ? 
Was it the owl, the Koko-koho, 
Hooting from the dismal forest 9 



THE SONG OF HIAWATHA 



157 



Sure a voice said in the silence : 
"These are corpses clad in garments, 
These are ghosts that come to haunt you, 
From the kingdom of Ponemah, 
From the land of the Hereafter ! " 

Homeward now came Hiawatha 
From his hunting in the forest, 
With the snow upon his tresses, 
And the red deer on his shoulders. 
At the feet of Laughing Water 
Down he threw his lifeless burden ; 
Nobler, handsomer she thought him, 
Than when first he came to woo her, 
First threw down the deer before her, 
As a token of his wishes, 
As a promise of the future. 

Then he turned and saw the strangers, 
Cowering, crouching with the shadows ; 
Said within himself, " Who are they ? 
What strange guests has Minnehaha ? " 
But he questioned not the strangers, 
Only spake to bid them welcome 
To his lodge, his food, his fireside. 

When the evening meal was ready, 
And the deer had been divided, 
Both the pallid guests, the strangers, 
Springing from among the shadows, 
Seized upon the choicest portions, 
Seized the white fat of the roebuck, 
Set apart for Laughing Water, 
For the wife of Hiawatha ; 
Without asking, without thanking, 
Eagerly devoured the morsels, 
Flitted back among the shadows 
In the corner of the wigwam. 

Not a word spake Hiawatha, 
Not a motion made Nokomis, 
Not a gesture Laughing Water ; 
Not a change came o'er their features ; 
Only Minnehaha softly 
Whispered, saying, " They are famished ; 
Let them do what best delights them ; 
Let them eat, for they are famished." 

Many a daylight dawned and darkened, 
Many a night shook off the daylight 
As the pine shakes off the snow-flakes 
From the midnight of its branches ; 
Day by day the guests unmoving 
Sat there silent in the wigwam ; 
But by night, in storm or starlight, 
Forth they went into the forest, 
Bringing fire-wood to the wigwam, 
Bringing pine-cones for the burning, 
Always sad and always silent. 

And whenever Hiawatha 



Came from fishing or from hunting, 
When the evening meal was ready, 
And the food had been divided, 
Gliding from their darksome corner, 
Came the pallid guests, the strangers, 
Seized upon the choicest portions 
Set aside for Laughing Water, 
And without rebuke or question 
Flitted back among the shadows. 

Never once had Hiawatha 
By a word or look reproved them { 
Never once had old Nokomis 
Made a gesture of impatience ; 
Never once had Laughing Water 
Shown resentment at the outrage. 
All had they endured in silence, 
That the rights of guest and stranger, 
That the virtue of free-giving, 
By a look might not be lessened, 
By a word might not be broken. 

Once at midnight Hiawatha, 
Ever wakeful, ever watchful, 
In the wigwam, dimly lighted 
By the brands that still were burning, 
By the glimmering, flickering firelight, 
Heard a sighing, oft repeated, 
Heard a sobbing, as of sorrow. 

From his couch rose Hiawatha, 
From his shaggy hides of bison, 
Pushed aside the deer-skin curtain, 
Saw the pallid guests, the shadows, 
Sitting upright on their couches, 
Weeping in the silent midnight. 

And he said : " O guests ! why is it 
That your hearts are so afflicted, 
That you sob so in the midnight ? 
Has perchance the old Nokomis, 
Has my wife, my Minnehaha, 
Wronged or grieved you by unkindness, 
Failed in hospitable duties ? " 

Then the shadows ceased from weepings 
Ceased from sobbing and lamenting, 
And they said, with gentle voices : 
" We are ghosts of the departed, 
Souls of those who once were with you. 
From the realms of Chibiabos 
Hither have we come to try you, 
Hither have we come to warn you. 

" Cries of grief and lamentation 
Reach us in the Blessed Islands ; 
Cries of anguish from the living, 
Calling back their friends departed, 
Sadden us with useless sorrow. 
Therefore have we come to try you ; 
No one knows us, no one heeds us. 



n8 



THE SONG OF HIAWATHA 



We are but a burden to you, 
And we see that the departed 
Have no place among the living. 

" Think of this, O Hiawatha ! 
Speak of it to all the people, 
That henceforward and forever 
They no more with lamentations 
Sadden the souls of the departed 
In the Islands of the Blessed. 

" Do not lay such heavy burdens 
In the graves of those you bury, 
Not such weight of furs and wampum, 
Not such weight of pots and kettles, 
For the spirits faint beneath them. 
Only give them food to carry, 
Only give them fire to light them. 

" Four days is the spirit's journey 
To the land of ghosts and shadows, 
Four its lonely night encampments ; 
Four times must their fires be lighted. 
Therefore, when the dead are buried. 
Let a fire, as night approaches, 
Four times on the grave be kindled, 
That the soul upon its journey 
May not lack the cheerful firelight, 
May not grope about in darkness. 

" Farewell, noble Hiawatha ! 
We have put you to the trial, 
To the proof have put your patience, 
By the insult of our presence, 
By the outrage of our actions. 
We have found you great and noble. 
Fail not in the greater trial, 
Faint not in the harder struggle." 

When they ceased, a sudden darkness 
Fell and filled the silent wigwam. 
Hiawatha beard a rustle 
As of garments trailing by him, 
Heard the curtain of the doorway 
Lifted by a hand he saw not, 
Felt the cold breath of the night air, 
For a moment saw the starlight ; 
But he saw the ghosts no longer, 
Saw no more the wandering spirits 
From the kingdom of Ponemah, 
From the land of the Hereafter. 



XX 

THE FAMINE 

Oh the long and dreary Winter ! 
Oh the cold and cruel Winter ! 
Ever thicker, thicker, thicker 



Froze the ice on lake and river, 
Ever deeper, deeper, deeper 
Fell the snow o'er all the landscape, 
Fell the covering snow, and drifted 
Through the forest, round the village. 

Hardly from his buried wigwam 
Could the hunter force a passage ; 
With his mittens and his snow-shoes 
Vainly walked he through the forest, 
Sought for bird or beast and found none 5 
Saw no track of deer or rabbit, 
In the snow beheld no footprints, 
In the ghastly, gleaming forest 
Fell, and could not rise from weakness. 
Perished there from cold and hunger. 

Oh the famine and the fever ! 
Oh the wasting of the famine ! 
Oh the blasting of the fever ! 
Oh the wailing of the children ! 
Oh the anguish of the women ! 

All the earth was sick and famished ; 
Hungry was the air around them, 
Hungry was the sky above them, 
And the hungry stars in heaven 
Like the eyes of wolves glared at them I 

Into Hiawatha's wigwam 
Came two other guests, as silent 
As the ghosts were, and as gloomy, 
Waited not to be invited, 
Did not parley at the doorway, 
Sat there without word of welcome 
In the seat of Laughing Water ; 
Looked with haggard eyes and hollow 
At the face of Laughing Water. 

And the foremost said : " Behold me I 
I am Famine, Bukadawin ! " 
And the other said : " Behold me t 
I am Fever, Ahkosewin ! " 

And the lovely Minnehaha 
Shuddered as they looked upon her, 
Shuddered at the words they uttered, 
Lay down on her bed in silence, 
Hid her face, but made no answer ; 
Lay there trembling, freezing, burning 
At the looks they cast upon her, 
At the fearful words they uttered. 

Forth into the empty forest 
Rushed the maddened Hiawatha ; 
In his heart was deadly sorrow, 
In his face a stony firmness ; 
On his brow the sweat of anguish 
Started, but it froze and fell not. 

Wrapped in furs and armed for hunting 
With his mighty bow of ash-tree, 
With his quiver full of arrows, 



THE SONG OF HIAWATHA 



*59 



With his mittens, Minjekahwun, 

Into the vast and vacant forest 

On his snow-shoes strode he forward. 

« Gitche Manito, the Mighty ! " 
Cried he with his face uplifted 
In that bitter hour of anguish, 
"Give your children food, O father ! 
Give us food, or we must perish ! 
Give me food for Minnehaha, 
For my dying Minnehaha ! " 

Through the far-resounding forest, 
Through the forest vast and vacant 
Rang that cry of desolation, 
But there came no other answer 
Than the echo of his crying, 
Than the echo of the woodlands, 
" Minnehaha ! Minnehaha ! " 

All day long roved Hiawatha 
In that melancholy forest, 
Through the shadow of whose thickets, 
In the pleasant days of Summer, 
Of that ne'er forgotten Summer, 
He had brought his young wife homeward 
From the land of the Dacotahs ; 
When the birds sang in the thickets, 
And the streamlets laughed and glistened, 
And the air was full of fragrance, 
And the lovely Laughing Water 
Said with voice that did not tremble, 
" I will follow you, my husband ! " 

In the wigwam with Nokomis, 
With those gloomy guests that watched her, 
With the Famine and the Fever, 
She was lying, the Beloved, 
She, the dying Minnehaha. 

" Hark ! " she said ; " I hear a rushing, 
Hear a roaring and a rushing, 
Hear the Falls of Minnehaha 
Calling to me from a distance ! " 
"No, my child ! " said old Nokomis, 
" 'T is the night-wind in the pine-trees ! " 

" Look ! " she said ; " I see my father 
Standing lonely at his doorway, 
Beckoning to me from his wigwam 
In the land of the Dacotahs ! " 
" No, my child ! " said old Nokomis. 
" 'T is the smoke, that waves and beck- 
ons ! " 

" Ah ! " said she, " the eyes of Pauguk 
Glare upon me in the darkness, 
I can feel his icy ringers 
Clasping mine amid the darkness I 
Hiawatha ! Hiawatha ! " 

And the desolate Hiawatha, 
Far away amid the forest, 



Miles away among the mountains, 
Heard that sudden cry of anguish, 
Heard the voice of Minnehaha 
Calling to him in the darkness, 
" Hiawatha ! Hiawatha ! " 

Over snow-fields waste and pathless, 
Under snow-encumbered branches, 
Homeward hurried Hiawatha, 
Empty-handed, heavy-hearted, 
Heard Nokomis moaning, wailing : 
" Wahonowin ! Wahonowin ! 
Would that I had perished for you, 
Would that I were dead as you are ! 
Wahonowin ! Wahonowin ! " 

And he rushed into the wigwam, 
Saw the old Nokomis slowly 
Rocking to and fro and moaning, 
Saw his lovely Minnehaha 
Lying dead and cold before him, 
And his bursting heart within him 
Uttered such a cry of anguish, 
That the forest moaned and shuddered, 
That the very stars in heaven 
Shook and trembled with his anguish. 

Then he sat down, still and speechless, 
On the bed of Minnehaha, 
At the feet of Laughing Water, 
At those willing feet, that never 
More would lightly run to meet him, 
Never more would lightly follow. 

With both hands his face he covered, 
Seven long days and nights he sat there, 
As if in a swoon he sat there, 
Speechless, motionless, unconscious 
Of the daylight or the darkness. 

Then they buried Minnehaha ; 
In the snow a grave they made her, 
In the forest deep and darksome, 
Underneath the moaning hemlocks ; 
Clothed her in her richest garments, 
Wrapped her in her robes of ermine, 
Covered her with snow, like ermine ; 
Thus they buried Minnehaha. 

And at night a fire was lighted, 
On her grave four times was kindled, 
For her soul upon its journey 
To the Islands of the Blessed. 
From his doorway Hiawatha 
Saw it burning in the forest, 
Lighting up the gloomy hemlocks ; 
From his sleepless bed uprising, 
From the bed of Minnehaha, 
Stood and watched it at the doorway, 
That it might not be extinguished, 
Might not leave her in the darkness. 



l6o 



THE SONG OF HIAWATHA 



" Farewell ! " said he, " Minnehaha ! 
Farewell, O my Laughing Water ! 
All my heart is buried with you, 
All my thoughts go onward with you ! 
Come not back again to labor, 
Come not back again to suffer, 
Where the Famine and the Fever 
Wear the heart and waste the body. 
Soon my task will be completed, 
Soon your footsteps I shall follow 
To the Islands of the Blessed, 
To the Kingdom of Ponemah, 
To the Land of the Hereafter ! " 



XXI 

THE WHITE MAN'S FOOT 

In his lodge beside a river, 
Close beside a frozen river, 
Sat an old man, sad and lonely. 
White his hair was as a snow-drift ; 
Dull and low his fire was burning, 
And the old man shook and trembled, 
Folded in his Waubewyon, 
In his tattered white-skin-wrapper, 
Hearing nothing but the tempest 
As it roared along the forest, 
Seeing nothing but the snow-storm, 
As it whirled and hissed and drifted. 

All the coals were white with ashes, 
And the fire was slowly dying, 
As a young man, walking lightly, 
At the open doorway entered. 
Red with blood of youth his cheeks were, 
Soft his eyes, as stars in Spring-time, 
Bound his forehead was with grasses ; 
Bound and plumed with scented grasses, 
On his lips a smile of beauty, 
Filling all the lodge with sunshine, 
In his hand a bunch of blossoms 
Filling all the lodge with sweetness. 

" Ah, my son ! " exclaimed the old man, 
" Happy are my eyes to see you. 
Sit here on the mat beside me, 
Sit here by the dying embers, 
Let us pass the night together, 
Tell me of your strange adventures, 
Of the lands where you have travelled ; 
I will tell you of my prowess, 
Of my many deeds of wonder." 

From his pouch he drew his peace-pipe, 
Very old and strangely fashioned ; 
Hade of red stone was the pipe-head, 



And the stem a reed with feathers ; 
Filled the pipe with bark of willow, 
Placed a burning coal upon it, 
Gave it to his guest, the stranger, 
And began to speak in this wise : 
" When I blow my breath about me, 
When I breathe upon the landscape, 
Motionless are all the rivers, 
Hard as stone becomes the water ! " 

And the young man answered, smiling ; 
"When I blow my breath about me, 
When I breathe upon the landscape, 
Flowers spring up o'er all the meadows, 
Singing, onward rush the rivers ! " 

" When I shake my hoary tresses," 
Said the old man darkly frowning, 
" All the land with snow is covered ; 
All the leaves from all the branches 
Fall and fade and die and wither, 
For I breathe, and lo ! they are not. 
From the waters and the marshes 
Rise the wild goose and the heron, 
Fly away to distant regions, 
For I speak, and lo ! they are not. 
And where'er my footsteps wander, 
All the wild beasts of the forest 
Hide themselves in holes and caverns, 
And the earth becomes as flintstone ! " 

" When I shake my flowing ringlets," 
Said the young man, softly laughing, 
" Showers of rain fall warm and wel 

come, 
Plants lift up their heads rejoicing, 
Back into their lakes and marshes 
Come the wild goose and the heron, 
Homeward shoots the arrowy swallow, 
Sing the bluebird and the robin, 
And where'er my footsteps wander, 
All the meadows wave with blossoms, 
All the woodlands ring with music, 
All the trees are dark with foliage ! " 

While they spake, the night departed : 
From the distant realms of Wabun, 
From his shining lodge of silver, 
Like a warrior robed and painted, 
Came the sun, and said, " Behold me 
Gheezis, the great sun, behold me ! " 

Then the old man's tongue was speech 
less 
And the air grew warm and pleasant, 
And upon the wigwam sweetly 
Sang the bluebird and the robin, 
And the stream began to murmur, 
And a scent of growing grasses 
Through the lodge was gently wafted. 



THE SONG OF HIAWATHA 



161 



And Segwun, the youthful stranger, 
More distinctly in the daylight 
Saw the icy face before him ; 
It was Feboan, the Winter ! 

From his eyes the tears were flowing, 
As from melting lakes the streamlets, 
And his body shrunk and dwindled 
As the shouting sun ascended, 
Till into the air it faded, 
Till into the ground it vanished, 
And the young man saw before him, 
On the hearth-stone of the wigwam, 
Where the fire had smoked and smoul- 
dered, 
Saw the earliest flower of Spring-time, 
Saw the Beauty of the Spring-time, 
Saw the Miskodeed in blossom. 

Thus it was that in the North-land 
After that unheard-of coldness, 
That intolerable Winter, 
Came the Spring with all its splendor, 
All its birds and all its blossoms, 
All its flowers and leaves and grasses. 

Sailing on the wind to northward, 
Flying in great flocks, like arrows, 
Like huge arrows shot through heaven, 
Passed the swan, the Mahnahbezee, 
Speaking almost as a man speaks ; 
And in long lines waving, bending 
Like a bow-string snapped asunder, 
Came the white goose, Waw-be-wawa ; 
And in pairs, or singly flying, 
Mahng the loon, with clangorous pinions, 
The blue heron, the Shuh-shuh-gah, 
And the grouse, the Mushkodasa. 

In the thickets and the meadows 
Piped the bluebird, the Owaissa, 
On the summit of the lodges 
i Sang the robin, the Opechee, 
In the covert of the pine-trees 
Cooed the pigeon, the Omemee ; 
And the sorrowing Hiawatha, 
Speechless in his infinite sorrow, 
Heard their voices calling to him, 
Went forth from his gloomy doorway, 
Stood and gazed into the heaven, 
Gazed upon the earth and waters. 

From his wanderings far to eastward, 
From the regions of the morning, 
From the shining land of Wabun, 
Homeward now returned Iagoo, 
The great traveller, the great boaster, 
Full of new and strange adventures, 
Marvels many and many wonders. 

And the people of the village 



Listened to him as he told them 
Of his marvellous adventures, 
Laughing answered him in this wise : 
" Ugh ! it is indeed Iagoo ! 
No one else beholds such wonders ! " 

He had seen, he said, a water 
Bigger than the Big-Sea- Water, 
Broader than the Gitche Gumee, 
Bitter so that none could drink it ! 
At each other looked the warriors, 
Looked the women at each other, 
Smiled, and said, " It cannot be so ! 
Kaw ! " they said, " it cannot be so 1 " 

O'er it, said he, o'er this water 
Came a great canoe with pinions, 
A canoe with wings came flying, 
Bigger than a grove of pine-trees, 
Taller than the tallest tree-tops ! 
And the old men and the women 
Looked and tittered at each other ; 
"Kaw!" they said, "we don't believe 
it!" 

From its mouth, he said, to greet him, 
Came Waywassimo, the lightning, 
Came the thunder, Annemeekee ! 
And the warriors and the women 
Laughed aloud at poor Iagoo ; 
" Kaw ! " they said, " what tales you tell 
us!" 

In it, said he, came a people, 
In the great canoe with pinions 
Came, he said, a hundred warriors ; 
Painted white were all their faces 
And with hair their chins were covered ! 
And the warriors and the women 
Laughed and shouted in derision, 
Like the ravens on the tree-tops, 
Like the crows upon the hemlocks. 
" Kaw ! " they said, " what lies you tell 

us ! 
Do not think that we believe them ! " 

Only Hiawatha laughed not, 
But he gravely spake and answered 
To their jeering and their jesting : 
" True is all Iagoo tells us ; 
I have seen it in a vision, 
Seen the great canoe with pinions, 
Seen the people with white faces, 
Seen the coming of this bearded 
People of the wooden vessel 
From the regions of the morning, 
From the shining land of Wabun. 

" Gitche Manito, the Mighty, 
The Great Spirit, the Creator, 
Sends them hither on his errand, 



1 62 



THE SONG OF HIAWATHA 



Sends them to us with his message. 
VVheresoe'er they move, before them 
Swarms the stinging fly, the Ahmo, 
Swarms the bee, the honey-maker ; 
Wheresoe'er they tread, beneath them 
Springs a flower unknown among us, 
Springs the White-man's Foot in blossom. 

" Let us welcome, then, the strangers, 
Hail them as our friends and brothers, 
And the heart's right hand of friendship 
Give them when they come to see us. 
Gitche Manito, the Mighty, 
Said this to me in my vision. 

" I beheld, too, in that vision 
All the secrets of the future, 
Of the distant days that shall be. 
I beheld the westward marches 
Of the unknown, crowded nations. 
All the laud was full of people, 
Restless, struggling, toiling, striving, 
Speaking many tongues, yet feeling 
But one heart-beat in their bosoms. 
In the woodlands rang their axes, 
Smoked their towns in all the valleys, 
Over all the lakes and rivers 
Rushed their great canoes of thunder. 

" Then a darker, drearier vision 
Passed before me, vague and cloud-like ; 
I beheld our nation scattered, 
All forgetful of my counsels, 
Weakened, warring with each other : 
Saw the remnants of our people 
Sweeping westward, wild and woful, 
Like the cloud-rack of a tempest, 
Like the withered leaves of Autumn ! " 



XXII 

HIAWATHA'S DEPARTURE 

By the shore of Gitche Gumee, 
By the shining Big-Sea-Water, 
At the doorway of his wigwam, 
In the pleasant Summer morning, 
Hiawatha stood and waited. 
All the air was full of freshness, 
All the earth was bright and joyous, 
And before him, through the sunshine, 
Westward toward the neighboring forest 
Passed in golden swarms the Ahmo, 
Passed the bees, the honey-makers, 
Burning, singing in the sunshine. 

Bright above him shone the heavens, 
Level spread the lake before him ; 



From its bosom leaped the sturgeon, 
Sparkling, flashing in the sunshine ; 
On its margin the great forest 
Stood reflected in the water, 
Every tree-top had its shadow, 
Motionless beneath the water. 

From the brow of Hiawatha 
Gone was every trace of sorrow, 
As the fog from off the water, 
As the mist from off the meadow. 
With a smile of joy and triumph, 
With a look of exultation, 
As of one who in a vision 
Sees what is to be, but is not, 
Stood and waited Hiawatha. 

Toward the sun his hands were lifted. 
Both the palms spread out against it, 
And between the parted fingers 
Fell the sunshine on his features, 
Flecked with light his naked shoulders, 
As it falls and flecks an oak-tree 
Through the rifted leaves and branches. 

O'er the water floating, flying, 
Something in the hazy distance, 
Something in the mists of morning, 
Loomed and lifted from the water, 
Now seemed floating, now seemed flying. 
Coming nearer, nearer, nearer. 

Was it Shingebis the diver ? 
Or the pelican, the Shada ? 
Or the heron, the Shuh-shuh-gah ? 
Or the white goose, Waw-be-wawa, 
With the water dripping, flashing, 
From its glossy neck and feathers ? 

It was neither goose nor diver, 
Neither pelican nor heron, 
O'er the water floating, flying, 
Through the shining mist of morning, 
But a birch canoe with paddles, 
Rising, sinking on the water, 
Dripping, flashing in the sunshine ; 
And within it came a people 
From the distant land of Wabun, 
From the farthest realms of morning 
Came the Black-Robe chief, the Prophet* 
He the Priest of Prayer, the Pale-face, 
With his guides and his companions. 

And the noble Hiawatha, 
With his hands aloft extended, 
Held aloft in sign of welcome, 
Waited, full of exultation, 
Till the birch canoe with paddles 
Grated on the shining pebbles, 
Stranded on the sandy margin, 
Till the Black-Robe chief, the Pale-face, 



THE SONG OF HIAWATHA 



163 



With the cross upon his bosom, 
Landed oil the sandy margin. 

Then the joyous Hiawatha 
Cried aloud and spake in this wise : 
" Beautiful is the sun, O strangers, 
When you come so far to see us ! 
All our town in peace awaits you, 
All our doors stand open for you ; 
You shall enter all our wigwams, 
For the heart's right hand we give you. 

" Never bloomed the earth so gayly, 
Never shone the sun so brightly, 
As to-day they shine and blossom 
When you come so far to see us ! 
Never was our lake so tranquil, 
Nor so free from rocks and sand-bars ; 
For your birch canoe in passing 
Has removed both rock and sand-bar. 

" Never before had our tobacco 
Such a sweet and pleasant flavor, 
Never the broad leaves of our cornfields 
Were so beautiful to look on, 
As they seem to us this morning, 
When you come so far to see us ! " 

And the Black-Robe chief made answer, 
Stammered in his speech a little, 
Speaking words yet unfamiliar : 
" Peace be with you, Hiawatha, 
Peace be with you and your people, 
Peace of prayer, and peace of pardon, 
Peace of Christ, and joy of Mary ! " 

Then the generous Hiawatha 
Led the strangers to his wigwam, 
Seated them on skins of bison, 
Seated them on skins of ermine, 
And the careful old Nokomis 
Brought them food in bowls of basswood, 
Water brought in birchen dippers, 
And the calumet, the peace-pipe, 
Filled and lighted for their smoking. 

All the old men of the village, 
All the warriors of the nation, 
All the Jossakeeds, the Prophets, 
The magicians, the Wabenos, 
And the Medicine-men, the Medas, 
Came to bid the strangers welcome ; 
" It is well," they said, " O brothers, 
That you come so far to see us ! " 

In a circle round the doorway, 
With their pipes they sat in silence, 
Waiting to behold the strangers, 
Waiting to receive their message ; 
Till the Black-Robe chief, the Pale-face, 
From the wigwam came to greet them, 
Stammering in his speech a little, 



Speaking words yet unfamiliar ; 

" It is well," they said, " O brother, 

That you come so far to see us ! " 

Then the Black-Robe chief, the Prophet^ 
Told his message to the people, 
Told the purport of his mission, 
Told them of the Virgin Mary, 
And her blessed Son, the Saviour, 
How in distant lands and ages 
He had lived on earth as we do ; 
How he fasted, prayed, and labored ; 
How the Jews, the tribe accursed, 
Mocked him, scourged him, crucified him f 
How he rose from where they laid him, 
Walked again with his disciples, 
And ascended into heaven. 

And the chiefs made answer, saying : 
" We have listened to j^our message, 
We have heard your words of wisdom, 
We will think on what you tell us. 
It is well for us, brothers, 
That you come so far to see us ! " 

Then they rose up and departed 
Each one homeward to his wigwam, 
To the young men and the women 
Told the story of the strangers 
Whom the Master of Life had sent their 
From the shining land of Wabun. 

Heavy with the heat and silence 
Grew the afternoon of Summer ; 
With a drowsy sound the forest 
Whispered round the sultry wigwam, 
With a sound of sleep the water 
Rippled on the beach below it ; 
From the cornfields shrill and ceaseless 
Sang the grasshopper, Pah-puk-keena ; 
And the guests of Hiawatha, 
Weary with the heat of Summer, 
Slumbered in the sultry wigwam. 

Slowly o'er the simmering landscape 
Fell the evening's dusk and coolness, 
And the long and level sunbeams 
Shot their spears into the forest, 
Breaking through its shields of shadow, 
Rushed into each secret ambush, 
Searched each thicket, dingle, hollow ; 
Still the guests of Hiawatha 
Slumbered in the silent wigwam. 

From his place rose Hiawatha, 
Bade farewell to old Nokomis, 
Spake in w T hispers, spake in this wise, 
Did not wake the guests, that slumbered 

" I am going, O Nokomis, 
On a long and distant journey, 
To the portals of the Sunset, 



164 



THE SONG OF HIAWATHA 



To the regions of the home-wind, 
Of the Northwest-Wind, Keewaydin. 
But these guests I leave behind me, 
In your watch and ward I leave them ; 
See that never harm comes near them, 
See that never fear molests them, 
Never danger nor suspicion, 
Never want of food or shelter, 
In the lodge of Hiawatha ! " 

Forth into the village went he, 
Bade farewell to all the warriors, 
Bade farewell to all the young men, 
Spake persuading, spake in this wise : 

" I am going, O my people, 
On a long and distant journey ; 
Many moons and many winters 
Will have come, and will have vanished, 
Ere I come again to see you. 
But my guests I leave behind me ; 
Listen to their words of \ /isdom, 
Listen to the truth they tell you, 
For the Master of Life has sent them 
From the land of light and morning ! " 

On the shore stood Hiawatha, 
Turned and waved his hand at parting ; 
On the clear and luminous water 
Launched his birch canoe for sailing, 
From the pebbles of the margin 
Shoved it forth into the water ; 
Whispered to it, " Westward ! westward ! " 
And with speed it darted forward. 

And the evening sun descending 
Set the clouds on fire with redness, 
Burned the broad sky, like a prairie, 



Left upon the level water 
One long track and trail of splendor, 
Down whose stream, as down a river, 
Westward, westward Hiawatha 
Sailed into the fiery sunset, 
Sailed into the purple vapors, 
Sailed into the dusk of evening. 

And the people from the margin 
Watched him floating, rising, sinking, 
Till the birch canoe seemed lifted 
High into that sea of splendor, 
Till it sank into the vapors 
Like the new moon slowly, slowly 
Sinking in the purple distance. 

And they said, " Farewell forever ! " 
Said, " Farewell, O Hiawatha ! " 
And the forests, dark and lonely, 
Moved through all their depths of darknesSj 
Sighed, " Farewell, O Hiawatha ! " 
And the waves upon the margin 
Rising, rippling on the pebbles, 
Sobbed, " Farewell, O Hiawatha ! " 
And the heron, the Shuh-shuh-gah, 
From her haunts among the fen-lands, 
Screamed, " Farewell, O Hiawatha ! " 

Thus departed Hiawatha, 
Hiawatha the Beloved, 
In the glory of the sunset, 
In the purple mists of evening, 
To the regions of the home-wind, 
Of the Northwest- Wind, Keewaydin^ 
To the Islands of the Blessed, 
To the Kingdom of Ponemah, 
To the Land of the Hereafter ! 



THE COURTSHIP OF MILES STANDISH 



MILES STANDISH 

In the Old Colony days, in Plymouth the 

land of the Pilgrims, 
To and fro in a room of his simple and 

primitive dwelling, 
Clad in doublet and hose, and boots of Cor- 
dovan leather, 
Strode, with a martial air, Miles Standish 

the Puritan Captain. 
Buried in thought he seemed, with his 

hands behind him, and pausing 
Ever and anon to behold his glittering 

weapons of warfare, 
Hanging in shining array along the walls 

of the chamber, — 
Cutlass and corselet of steel, and his trusty 

sword of Damascus, 
Curved at the point and inscribed with its 

mystical Arabic sentence, 
While underneath, in a corner, were fowl- 
ing-piece, musket, and matchlock. 
Short of stature he was, but strongly built 

and athletic, 
Broad in the shoulders, deep-chested, with 

muscles and sinews of iron; 
Brown as a nut was his face, but his russet 

beard was already 
Flaked with patches of snow, as hedges 

sometimes in November. 
Near him was seated John Alden, his friend 

and household companion, 
Writing with diligent speed at a table of 

pine by the window; 
Fair-haired, azure-eyed, with delicate Saxon 

complexion, 
Having the dew of his youth, and the 

beauty thereof, as the captives 
Whom Saint Gregory saw, and exclaimed, 

"Not Angles, but Angels." 
Youngest of all was he of the men who 

came in the Mayflower. 

Suddenly breaking the silence, the dili- 
gent scribe interrupting, 

Spake, in the pride of his heart, Miles 
Standish the Captain of Plymouth. 

" Look at these arms," he said, " the war- 
like weapons that hang here 



Burnished and bright and clean, as if for 

parade or inspection ! 
This is the sword of Damascus I fought 

with in Flanders; this breastplate, 
Well I remember the day ! once saved my 

life in a skirmish; 
Here in front you can see the very dint of 

the bullet 
Fired point-blank at my heart by a Spanish 

arcabucero. 
Had it not been of sheer steel, the for- 
gotten bones of Miles Standish 
Would at this moment be mould, in their 

grave in the Flemish morasses." 
Thereupon answered John Alden, but 

looked not up from his writing: 
" Truly the breath of the Lord hath slack- 
ened the speed of the bullet; 
He in his mercy preserved you, to be oui- 

shield and our weapon ! " 
Still the Captain continued, unheeding the 

words of the stripling: 
" See, how bright they are burnished, as if 

in an arsenal hanging; 
That is because I have done it myself, and 

not left it to others. 
Serve yourself, would you be well served, 

is an excellent adage; 
So I take care of my arms, as you of your 

pens and your inkhorn. 
Then, too, there are my soldiers, my great, 

invincible army, 
Twelve men, all equipped, having each his 

rest and his matchlock, 
Eighteen shillings a month, together with 

diet and pillage, 
And, like Csesar, I know the name of each 

of my soldiers ! " 
This he said with a smile, that danced in 

his eyes, as the sunbeams 
Dance on the waves of the sea, and vanish 

again in a moment. 
Alden laughed as he wrote, and still the 

Captain continued: 
" Look ! you can see from this window my 

brazen howitzer planted 
High on the roof of the church, a preacher 

who speaks to the purpose, 
Steady, straightforward, and strong, with 

irresistible logic, 
Orthodox, flashing conviction right into the 

hearts of the heathen. 



1 66 



THE COURTSHIP OF MILES STANDISH 



Now we are ready, I think, for any assault 

of the Indians; 
Let them come, if they like, and the sooner 

they try it the better, — 
Let them come, if they like, be it sagamore, 

sachem, or pow-wow, 
Aspinet, Samoset, Corbitant, Squanto, or 

Tokamahamon ! " 

Long at the window he stood, and wist- 
fully gazed on the landscape, 

Washed with a cold gray mist, the vapory 
breath of the east-wind, 

Forest and meadow and hill, and the steel- 
blue rim of the ocean, 

Lying silent and sad, in the afternoon shad- 
ows and sunshine. 

Over his countenance flitted a shadow like 
those on the landscape, 

Gloom intermingled with light; and his 
voice was subdued with emotion, 

Tenderness, pity, regret, as after a pause 
he proceeded: 

" Yonder there, on the hill by the sea. lies 
buried Rose Standish; 

Beautiful rose of love, that bloomed for me 
by the wayside ! 

She was the first to die of all who came in 
the Mayflower ! 

Green above her is growing the field of 
wheat we have sown there, 

Better to hide from the Indian scouts the 
graves of our people, 

Lest they should count them and see how 
many already have perished ! " 

Sadly his face he averted, and strode up 
and down, and was thoughtful. 

Fixed to the opposite wall was a shelf of 
books, and among them 

Prominent three, distinguished alike for 
bulk and for binding; 

Bariffe's Artillery Guide, and the Com- 
mentaries of Caesar 

Oat of the Latin translated by Arthur 
Goldinge of London, 

And, as if guarded by these, between them 
was standing the Bible. 

Musing a moment before them, Miles 
Standish paused, as if doubtful 

Which of the three he should choose for 
his consolation and comfort, 

Whether the wars of the Hebrews, the fa- 
mous campaigns of the Romans, 



Or the Artillery practice, designed for bel- 
ligerent Christians. 

Finally down from its shelf he dragged the 
ponderous Roman, 

Seated himself at the window, and opened 
the book, and in silence 

Turned o'er the well-worn leaves, where 
thumb-marks thick on the margin, 

Like the trample of feet, proclaimed the 
battle was hottest. 

Nothing was heard in the room but the 
hurrying pen of the stripling, 

Busily writing epistles important, to go by 
the Mayflower, 

Ready to sail on the morrow, or next day 
at latest, God willing ! 

Homeward bound with the tidings of all 
that terrible winter, 

Letters written by Aid en, and full of the 
name of Priscilla ! 

Full of the name and the fame of the Puri- 
tan maiden Priscilla ! 

II 
LOVE AND FRIENDSHIP 

Nothing was heard in the room but the 
hurrying pen of the stripling, 

Or an occasional sigh from the laboring 
heart of the Captain, 

Reading the marvellous words and achieve- 
ments of Julius Csesar. 

After a while he exclaimed, as he smote 
with his hand, palm downwards, 

Heavily on the page : " A wonderful man 
was this Csesar ! 

You are a writer, and I am a fighter, but 
here is a fellow 

Who could both write and fight, and in 
both was equally skilful ! " 

Straightway answered and spake John 
Alden, the comely, the youthful: 

" Yes, he was equally skilled, as you say 5 
with his pen and his weapons. 

Somewhere have I read, but where I for- 
get, he could dictate 

Seven letters at once, at the same time 
writing his memoirs." 

" Truly," continued the Captain, not heed- 
ing or hearing the other, 

" Truly a wonderful man was Caius Julius 
Csesar ! 

Better be first, he said, in a little Iberiap 
village, 



THE COURTSHIP OF MILES STANDISH 



167 



Than be second in Rome, and I think he 
was right when he said it. 

Twice was he married before he was 
twenty, and many times after ; 

Battles five hundred he fought, and a 
thousand cities he conquered ; 

He, too, fought in Flanders, as he himself 
has recorded ; 

Finally he was stabbed by his friend, the 
orator Brutus ! 

Now, do you know what he did on a cer- 
tain occasion in Flanders, 

When the rear-guard of his army retreated, 
the front giving way too, 

And the immortal Twelfth Legion was 
crowded so closely together 

There was no room for their swords ? 
Why, he seized a shield from a sol- 
dier, 

Put himself straight at the head of his 
troops, and commanded the captains, 

Calling on each by his name, to order for- 
ward the ensigns ; 

Then to widen the ranks, and give more 
room for their weapons ; 

So he won the day, the battle of something- 
or-other. 

That 's what I always say ; if you wish a 
thing to be well done, 

You must do it yourself, you must not 
leave it to others ! " 

All was silent again ; the Captain con- 
tinued his reading. 

Nothing was heard in the room but the 
hurrying pen of the stripling 

Writing epistles important to go next day 
by the Mayflower, 

Filled with the name and the fame of the 
Puritan maiden Priscilla ; 

Every sentence began or closed with the 
name of Priscilla, 

Till the treacherous pen, to which he con- 
fided the secret, 

Strove to betray it by singing and shouting 
the name of Priscilla ! 

Finally closing his book, with a bang of the 
ponderous cover, 

Sudden and loud as the sound of a soldier 
grounding his musket, 

Thus to the young man spake Miles Stan- 
dish the Captain of Plymouth : 

" When you have finished your work, I have 
something important to tell you. 



Be not however in haste ; I can wait ; I 

shall not be impatient ! " 
Straightway Alden replied, as he folded the 

last of his letters, 
Pushing his papers aside, and giving re- 
spectful attention : 
" Speak ; for whenever you speak, I am 

always ready to listen, 
Always ready to hear whatever pertains to 

Miles Standish." 
Thereupon answered the Captain, embar- 
rassed, and culling his phrases : 
" 'T is not good for a man to be alone, say 

the Scriptures. 
This I have said before, and again and 

again I repeat it ; 
Every hour in the day, I think it, and feel 

it, and say it. 
Since Rose Standish died, my life has been 

weary and dreary ; 
Sick at heart have I been, beyond the heal- 
ing of friendship ; 
Oft in my lonely hours have I thought of 

the maiden Priscilla. 
She is alone in the world ; her father and 

mother and brother 
Died in the winter together ; I saw her 

going and coming, 
Now to the grave of the dead, and now to 

the bed of the dying, 
Patient, courageous, and strong, and said 

to myself, that if ever 
There were angels on earth, as there are 

angels in heaven, 
Two have I seen and known ; and the angel 

whose name is Priscilla 
Holds in my desolate life the place which 

the other abandoned. 
Long have I cherished the thought, but 

never have dared to reveal it, 
Being a coward in this, though valiant 

enough for the most part. 
Go to the damsel Priscilla, the loveliest 

maiden of Plymouth, 
Say that a blunt old Captain, a man net 

of words but of actions, 
Offers his hand and his heart, the hand and 

heart of a soldier. 
Not in these words, you know, but this in 

short is my meaning ; 
I am a maker of war, and not a maker of 

phrases. 
You, who are bred as a scholar, can say it 

in elegant language, 



i68 



THE COURTSHIP OF MILES STANDISH 



Such as you read in your books of the 
pleadings and wooings of lovers, 

Such as you think best adapted to win the 
heart of a maiden." 

When he had spoken, John Alden, the 

fair-haired, taciturn stripling, 
All aghast at his words, surprised, embar- 
rassed, bewildered, 
Trying to mask his dismay by treating the 

subject with lightness, 
Trying to smile, and yet feeling his heart 

stand still in his bosom, 
Just as a timepiece stops in a house that is 

stricken by lightning, 
Thus made answer and spake, or rather 

stammered than answered : 
"Such a message as that, I am sure I 

should mangle and mar it : 
If you would have it well done, — I am 

only repeating your maxim, — 
You must do it yourself, you must not leave 

it to others ! " 
But with the air of a man whom nothing 

can turn from his purpose, 
Gravely shaking his head, made answer the 

Captain of Plymouth : 
" Truly the maxim is good, and I do not 

mean to gainsay it ; 
But we must use it discreetly, and not 

waste powder for nothing. 
Now, as I said before, I was never a maker 

of phrases. 
I can march up to a fortress and summon 

the place to surrender, 
But march up to a woman with such a pro- 
posal, I dare not. 
I 'm not afraid of bullets, nor shot from the 

mouth of a cannon, 
But of a thundering ' No ! ' point-blank 

from the mouth of a woman, 
That I confess I 'm afraid of, nor am I 

ashamed to confess it ! 
So you must grant my request, for you are 

an elegant scholar, 
Having the graces of speech, and skill in 

the turning of phrases." 
Taking the hand of his friend, who still 

was reluctant and doubtful, 
Holding it long in his own, and pressing it 

kindly, he added : 
"Though I have spoken thus lightly, yet 

deep is the feeling that prompts me ; 
Surely you cannot refuse what I ask in the 

name of our friendship ! " 



Then made answer John Alden : " Th@ 

name of friendship is sacred ; 
What you demand in that name, I have not 

the power to deny you ! " 
So the strong will prevailed, subduing and 

moulding the gentler, 
Friendship prevailed over love, and Alden 

went on his errand. 



Ill 



THE LOVER'S ERRAND 

So the strong will prevailed, and Aide?* 

went on his errand, 
Out of the street of the village, and into 

the paths of the forest, 
Into the tranquil woods, where bluebirds 

and robins were building 
Towns in the populous trees, with hanging- 
gardens of verdure, 
Peaceful, aerial cities of joy and affection 

and freedom. 
All around him was calm, but within him 

commotion and conflict, 
Love contending with friendship, and self 

with each generous impulse. 
To and fro in his breast his thoughts were 

heaving and dashing, 
As in a foundering ship, with every roll of 

the vessel, 
Washes the bitter sea, the merciless surge 

of the ocean ! 
" Must I relinquish it all," he cried with a 

wild lamentation, — 
" Must I relinquish it all, the joy, the hope, 

the illusion ? 
Was it for this I have loved, and waitedj 

and worshipped in silence ? 
Was it for this I have followed the flying 

feet and the shadow 
Over the wintry sea, to the desolate shore* 

of New England ? 
Truly the heart is deceitful, and out of its 

depths of corruption 
Rise, like an exhalation, the misty phan* 

toms of passion ; 
Angels of light they seem, but are only 

delusions of Satan. 
All is clear to me now ; I feel it, I see it 

distinctly ! 
This is the hand of the Lord ; it is laid upon 

me in anger, 



THE COURTSHIP OF MILES STANDISH 



169 



For I have followed too much the heart's 

desires and devices, 
Worshipping Astaroth blindly, and impious 

idols of Baal. 
This is the cross I must bear ; the sin and 

the swift retribution." 

So through the Plymouth woods John 

Alden went on his errand ; 
Crossing the brook at the ford, where it 

brawled over pebble and shallow, 
Gathering still, as he went, the May-flowers 

blooming around him, 
Fragrant, filling the air with a strange and 

wonderful sweetness, 
Children lost in the woods, and covered 

with leaves in their slumber. 
" Puritan flowers," he said, " and the type 

of Puritan maidens, 
Modest and simple and sweet, the very 

type of Priscilla ! 
So I will take them to her ; to Priscilla the 

Mayflower of Plymouth, 
Modest and simple and sweet, as a parting 

gift will I take them ; 
Breathing their silent farewells, as they 

fade and wither and perish, 
Soon to be thrown away as is the heart of 

the giver." 
So through the Plymouth woods John 

Alden went on his errand ; 
Came to an open space, and saw the disk 

of the ocean, 
Sailless, sombre and cold with the comfort- 
less breath of the east-wind ; 
Saw the new-built house, and people at 

work in a meadow ; 
Heard, as he drew near the door, the mu- 
sical voice of Priscilla 
Singing the hundredth Psalm, the grand 

old Puritan anthem, 
Music that Luther sang to the sacred words 

of the Psalmist, 
Full of the breath of the Lord, consoling 

and comforting many. 
Then, as he opened the door, he beheld the 

form of the maiden 
Seated beside her wheel, and the carded 

wool like a snow-drift 
Piled at her knee, her white hands feeding 

the ravenous spindle, 
WTiile with her foot on the treadle she 

guided the wheel in its motion. 
Open wide on her lap lay the well-worn 

psalm-book of Ainsworth, 



Printed in Amsterdam, the words and the 

music together, 
Rough-hewn, angular notes, like stones in 

the wall of a churchyard, 
Darkened and overhung by the running 

vine of the verses. 
Such was the book from whose pages she 

sang the old Puritan anthem, 
She, the Puritan girl, in the solitude of the 

forest, 
Making the humble house and the modest 

apparel of homespun 
Beautiful with her beauty, and rich witfc 

the wealth of her being ! 
Over him rushed, like a wind that is keen 

and cold and relentless, 
Thoughts of what might have been, and 

the weight and woe of his errand ; 
All the dreams that had faded, and all the 

hopes that had vanished, 
All his life henceforth a dreary and tenant- 
less mansion, 
Haunted by vain regrets, and pallid, sorrow- 
ful faces. 
Still he said to himself, and almost fiercely 

he said it, 
" Let not him that putteth his hand to the 

plough look backwards ; 
Though the ploughshare cut through the 

flowers of life to its fountains, 
Though it pass o'er the graves of the dead 

and the hearths of the living, 
It is the will of the Lord ; and his mercy 

endureth forever ! " 

So he entered the house : and the hum of 

the wheel and the singing 
Suddenly ceased ; for Priscilla, aroused by 

his step on the threshold, 
Rose as he entered, and gave him her hand, 

in signal of welcome, 
Saying, " I knew it was you, when I heard 

your step in the passage ; 
For I was thinking of you, as I sat there 

singing and spinning." 
Awkward and dumb with delight, that a 

thought of him had been mingled 
Thus in the sacred psalm, that came from 

the heart of the maiden, 
Silent before her he stood, and gave her 

the flowers for an answer, 
Finding no words for his thought. He re- 
membered that day in the winter, 
After the first great snow, when he broke 

a path from the village, 



i7o 



THE COURTSHIP OF MILES STANDISH 



Reeling and plunging along through the 
drifts that eucumbered the doorway, 

Stamping the snow from his feet as he en- 
tered the house, and Priscilla 

Laughed at his snowy locks, and gave him 
a seat by the fireside, 

Grateful and pleased to know he had 
thought of her in the snow-storm. 

Had he but spoken then ! perhaps not in 
vain had he spoken ; 

Now it was all too late ; the golden mo- 
ment had vanished ! 

So he stood there abashed, and gave her 
the flowers for an answer. 

Then they sat down and talked of the 
birds and the beautiful Spring-time, 

Talked of their friends at home, and the 
Mayflower that sailed on the mor- 
row. 

" I have been thinking all day," said gently 
the Puritan maiden, 

" Dreaming all night, and thinking all day, 
of the hedge-rows of England, — 

They are in blossom now, and the country 
is all like a garden : 

Thinking of lanes and fields, and the song 
of the lark and the linnet, 

Seeing the village street, and familiar faces 
of neighbors 

Going about as of old, and stopping to gos- 
sip together, 

And, at the end of the street, the village 
church, with the ivy 

Climbing the old gray tower, and the quiet 
graves in the churchyard. 

Kind are the people I live with, and dear 
to me my religion ; 

Still my heart is so sad, that I wish myself 
back in Old England. 

You will say it is wrong, but I cannot help 
it : I almost 

Wish myself back in Old England, I feel 
so lonely and wretched." 

Thereupon answered the youth : " In- 
deed I do not condemn you ; 

Stouter hearts than a woman's have quailed 
in this terrible winter. 

Tours is tender and trusting, and needs 
a stronger to lean on ; 

Sol have come to you now, with an offer 
and proffer of marriage 

Made by a good man and true, Miles Stan- 
dish the Captain of Plymouth ! " 



Thus he delivered his message, the dex^ 

terous writer of letters, — 
Did not embellish the theme, nor array it 

in beautiful phrases, 
But came straight to the point, and blurted 

it out like a school-boy ; 
Even the Captain himself could hardly 

have said it more bluntly. 
Mute with amazement and sorrow, Priscilla 

the Puritan maiden 
Looked into Alden's face, her eyes dilated 

with wonder, 
Feeling his words like a blow, that stunned 

her and rendered her speechless ; 
Till at length she exclaimed, interrupting 

the ominous silence : 
" If the great Captain of Plymouth is so 

very eager to wed me, 
Why dees he not come himself, and take 

the trouble to woo me ? 
If I am not worth the wooing, I surely am 

not worth the winning ! " 
Then John Alden began explaining and 

smoothing the matter, 
Making it worse as he went, by saying the 

Captain was busy, — 
Had no time for such things — such things ! 

the words grating harshly 
Fell on the ear of Priscilla ; and swift as a 

flash she made answer : 
" Has he no time for such things, as you 

call it, before he is married, 
Would he be likely to find it, or make it, 

after the wedding ? 
That is the way with you men ; you don't 

understand us, you cannot. 
When you have made up your minds, 

after thinking of this one and that 

one, 
Choosing, selecting, rejecting, comparing 

one with another, 
Then you make known your desire, with 

abrupt and sudden avowal, 
And are offended and hurt, and indignant 

perhaps, that a woman 
Does not respond at once to a love that she 

never suspected, 
Does not attain at a bound the height to 

which you have been climbing. 
This is not right nor just : for surely a 

woman's affection 
Is not a thing to be asked for, and had for 

only the asking. 
When one is truly in love, one not only 

says it, but shows it. 



THE COURTSHIP OF MILES STANDISH 



Had he but waited awhile, had he only 

showed that he loved me, 
Even this Captain of yours — who knows ? 

— at last might have won me, 
Old and rough as he is ; but now it never 

can happen." 

Still John Alden went on, unheeding the 

words of Priscilla, 
Urging the suit of his friend, explaining, 

persuading, expanding ; 
Spoke of his courage and skill, and of all 

his battles in Flanders, 
How with the people of God he had chosen 

to suffer affliction ; 
How, in return for his zeal, they had made 

him Captain of Plymouth ; 
He was a gentleman born, could trace his 

pedigree plainly 
Back to Hugh Standish of Duxbury Hall, 

in Lancashire, England, 
Who was the son of Ralph, and the grand- 
son of Thurston de Standish ; 
Heir unto vast estates, of which he was 

basely defrauded, 
Still bore the family arms, and had for his 

crest a cock argent, 
Oombed and wattled gules, and all the rest 

of the blazon. 
He was a man of honor, of noble and gen- 
erous nature ; 
Though he was rough, he was kindly ; she 

knew how during the winter 
He had attended the sick, with a hand as 

gentle as woman's ; 
Somewhat hasty and hot, he could not deny 

it, and headstrong, 
Stern as a soldier might be, but hearty, and 

placable always, 
Not to be laughed at and scorned, because 

he was little of stature ; 
For he was great of heart, magnanimous, 

courtly, courageous ; 
Any woman in Plymouth, nay, any woman 

in England, 
Might be happy and proud to be called the 

wife of Miles Standish ! 

But as he warmed and glowed, in his 

simple and eloquent language, 
Quite forgetful of self, and full of the praise 

of his rival, 
Archly the maiden smiled, and, with eyes 

overrunning with laughter, 
said, in a tremulous voice, " Why don't you 

speak for yourself, John ? " 



IV 
JOHN ALDEN 

Into the open air John Alden, perplexed 

and bewildered, 
Rushed like a man insane, and wandered 

alone by the sea-side ; 
Paced up and down the sands, and bared 

his head to the east-wind, 
Cooling his heated brow, and the fire and 

fever within him. 
Slowly as out of the heavens, with apocalyp- 
tical splendors, 
Sank the City of God, in the vision of John 

the Apostle, 
So, with its cloudy walls of chrysolite, 

jasper, and sapphire, 
Sank the broad red sun, and over its turrets 

uplifted 
Glimmered the golden reed of the angel 

who measured the city. 

" Welcome, O wind of the East ! " he 
exclaimed in his wild exultation, 

" Welcome, O wind of the East, from the 
caves of the misty Atlantic ! 

Blowing o'er fields of dulse, and measure- 
less meadows of sea-grass, 

Blowing o'er rocky wastes, and the grot' oes 
and gardens of ocean ! 

Lay thy cold, moist hand on my burning 
forehead, and wrap me 

Close in thy garments of mist, to allay the 
fever within me ! " 

Like an awakened conscience, the sea 
was moaning and tossing, 

Beating remorseful and loud the mutable 
sands of the sea-shore. 

Fierce in his soul was the struggle and tu- 
mult of passions contending ; 

Love triumphant and crowned, and friend- 
ship wounded and bleeding, 

Passionate cries of desire, and importunate 
pleadings of duty ! 

" Is it my fault," he said, " that the maiden 
has chosen between us ? 

Is it my fault that he failed, — my fault 
that I am the victor ? " 

Then within him there thundered a voice, 
like the voice of the Prophet : 

" It hath displeased the Lord ! " — and ha 
thought of David's transgression, 

Bathsheba's beautiful face, and his friend 
in the front of the battle ! 



172 



THE COURTSHIP OF MILES STANDISH 



Shame and confusion of guilt, and abase- 
ment and self-condemnation, 

Overwhelmed him at once ; and he cried 
in the deepest contrition : 

** It hath displeased the Lord ! It is the 
temptation of Satan ! " 

Then, uplifting his head, he looked at the 

sea, and beheld there 
Dimly the shadowy form of the Mayflower 

riding at anchor, 
Rocked on the rising tide, and ready to 

sail on the morrow ; 
Heard the voices of men through the mist, 

the rattle of cordage 
Thrown on the deck, the shouts of the 

mate, and the sailors' " Ay, ay, 

Sir!" 
Clear and distinct, but not loud, in the 

dripping air of the twilight. 
Still for a moment he stood, and listened, 

and stared at the vessel, 
Then went hurriedly on, as one who, seeing 

a phantom, 
Stops, then quickens his pace, and follows 

the beckoning shadow. 
** Yes, it is plain to me now," he murmured ; 

" the hand of the Lord is 
jueading me out of the land of darkness, 

the bondage of error, 
Through the sea, that shall lift the walls of 

its waters around me, 
Hiding me, cutting me off, from the cruel 

thoughts that pursue me. 
Back will I go o'er the ocean, this dreary 

land will abandon, 
Her whom I may not love, and him whom 

my heart has offended. 
Better to be in my grave in the green old 

churchyard in England, 
Close by my mother's side, and among the 

dust of my kindred ; 
Better be dead and forgotten, than living 

in shame and dishonor ; 
Sacred and safe and unseen, in the dark of 

the narrow chamber 
With me my secret shall lie, like a buried 

jewel that glimmers 
Bright on the hand that is dust, in the 

chambers of silence and darkness, — 
les, as the marriage ring of the great es- 
pousal hereafter ! " 

Thus as he spake, he turned, in the 
strength of his strong resolution, 



Leaving behind him the shore, and hurried 

along in the twilight, 
Through the congenial gloom of the fores' 

silent and sombre, 
Till he beheld the lights in the seven houses 

of Plymouth, 
Shining like seven stars in the dusk and 

mist of the evening. 
Soon he entered his door, and found the 

redoubtable Captain 
Sitting alone, and absorbed in the martial 

pages of Ctesar, 
Fighting some great campaign in Hainault 

or Brabant or Flanders. 
" Long have you been on your errand," he 

said with a cheery demeanor, 
Even as one who is waiting an answer, and 

fears not the issue. 
" Not far off is the house, although the 

woods are between us ; 
But you have lingered so long, that while 

you were going and coming 
I have fought ten battles and sacked and 

demolished a city. 
Come, sit down, and in order relate to me 

all that has happened." 

Then John Aid en spake, and related the 
wondrous adventure, 

From beginning to end, minutely, just as it 
happened ; 

How he had seen Priscilla, and how he had 
sped in his courtship, 

Only smoothing a little, and softening down 
her refusal. 

But when he came at length to the words 
Priscilla had spoken, 

Words so tender and cruel : " Why don't 
you speak for yourself, John ? " 

Up leaped tlie Captain of Plymouth, and 
stamped on the floor, till his armor 

Clanged on the wall, where it hung, with a 
sound of sinister omen. 

All his pent-up wrath burst forth in a sud- 
den explosion, 

E'en as a hand-grenade, that scatters de- 
struction around it. 

Wildly he shouted, and loud : " John Al- 
den ! you have betrayed me ! 

Me, Miles Standish, your friend ! have sup- 
planted, defrauded, betrayed me-' 

One of my ancestors ran his sword througn 
the heart of Wat Tyler ; 

Who shall prevent me from running my 
own through the heart of a traitor 2 



THE COURTSHIP OF MILES STANDISH 



173 



£f ours is the greater treason, for yours is a 

treason to friendship ! 
You, who lived under my roof, whom I 

cherished and loved as a brother ; 
You, who have fed at my board, and drunk 

at my cup, to whose keeping 
I have intrusted my honor, my thoughts 

the most sacred and secret, — 
You too, Brutus ! ah woe to the name of 

friendship hereafter ! 
Brutus was Csesar's friend, and you were 

mine, but henceforward 
Let there be nothing between us save war, 

and implacable hatred ! " 

So spake the Captain of Plymouth, and 
strode about in the chamber, 

Chafing and choking with rage ; like cords 
were the veins on his temples. 

But in the midst of his anger a man ap- 
peared at the doorway, 

Bringing iu uttermost haste a message of 
urgent importance, 

Rumors of danger and war and hostile in- 
cursions of Indians ! 

Straightway the Captain paused, and, with- 
out further question or parley, 

Took from the nail on the wall his sword 
with its scabbard of iron, 

Buckled the belt round his waist, and, 
frowning fiercely, departed. 

Alden was left alone. He heard the clank 
of the scabbard 

Growing fainter and fainter, and dying 
away in the distance. 

Then he arose from his seat, and looked 
forth into the darkness, 

Felt the cool air blow on his cheek, that 
was hot with the insult, 

Lifted his eyes to the heavens, and, folding 
his hands as in childhood, 

Prayed in the silence of night to the Father 
who seeth in secret. 

Meanwhile the choleric Captain strode 

wrathful away to the council, 
Found it already assembled, impatiently 

waiting his coming ; 
Men in the middle of life, austere and grave 

in deportment, 
Only one of them old, the hill that was 

nearest to heaven, 
Covered with snow, but erect, the excellent 

Elder of Plymouth. 



' God had sifted three kingdoms to find the 

wheat for this planting, 
Then had sifted the wheat, as the living 

seed of a nation ; 
So say the chronicles old, and such is the 

faith of the people ! 
Near them was standing an Indian, in atti- 
tude stern and defiant, 
Naked down to the waist, and grim and 

ferocious in aspect ; 
While on the table before them was lying 

unopened a Bible, 
I Ponderous, bound in leather, brass-studded, 

printed in Holland, 
And beside it outstretched the skin of a 

rattlesnake glittered, 
Filled, like a quiver, with arrows ; a signal 

and challenge of warfare, 
Brought by the Indian, and speaking with 

arrowy tongues of defiance. 
This Miles Standish beheld, as he entered. 

and heard them debating 
What were an answer befitting the hostile 

message and menace, 
Talking of this and of that, contriving, sug- 
gesting, objecting ; 
One voice only for peace, and that the 

voice of the Elder, 
Judging it wise and well that some at least 

were converted, 
Rather than any were slain, for this was 

but Christian behavior ! 
Then out spake Miles Standish, the stal- 
wart Captain of Plymouth, 
Muttering deep in his throat, for his voice 

was husky with anger, 
" What ! do you mean to make war with 

milk and the water of roses ? 
Is it to shoot red squirrels you have your 

howitzer planted 
There on the roof of the church, or is it to 

shoot red devils ? 
Truly the only tongue that is understood 

by a savage 
Must be the tongue of fire that speaks from 

the mouth of the cannon ! " 
Thereupon answered and said the excellent 

Elder of Plymouth, 
Somewhat amazed and alarmed at this ir- 
reverent language ; 
" Not so thought St. Paul, nor yet the other 

Apostles ; 
Not from the cannon's mouth were the 

tongues of fire they spake with ! " 



174 



THE COURTSHIP OF MILES STANDISH 



But unheeded fell this mild rebuke on the 

Captain, 
Who had advanced to the table, and thus 

continued discoursing : 
"Leave this matter to me, for to me by 

right it pertaineth. 
War is a terrible trade ; but in the cause 

that is righteous, 
Sweet is the smell of powder ; and thus I 

answer the challenge !" 

Then from the rattlesnake's skin, with 

a sudden, contemptuous gesture, 
Jerking the Indian arrows, he filled it with 

powder and bullets 
Full to the very jaws, and handed it back 

to the savage, 
Saying, in thundering tones : " Here, take 

it ! this is your answer ! " 
Silently out of the room then glided the 

glistening savage, 
Bearing the serpent's skin, and seeming 

himself like a serpent, 
Winding his sinuous way in the dark to the 

depths of the forest. 



V 



THE SAILING OF THE MAYFLOWER 

Just in the gray of the dawn, as the mists 

uprose from the meadows, 
There was a stir and a sound in the slum- 
bering village of Plymouth ; 
Clanging and clicking of arms, and the 

order imperative, " Forward ! " 
Given in tone suppressed, a tramp of feet, 

and then silence. 
Figures ten, in the mist, marched slowly 

out of the village. 
Standish the stalwart it was, with eight of 

his valorous army, 
Led by their Indian guide, by Hobomok, 

friend of the white men, 
Northward marching to quell the sudden 

revolt of the savage. 
Giants they seemed in the mist, or the 

mighty men of King David ; 
Slants in heart they were, who believed in 

God and the Bible, — 
Ay, who believed in the smiting of Midian- 

ites and Philistines. 
Over them gleamed far off the crimson 

banners of morning ; 



Under them loud on the sands, the serried 

billows, advancing, 
Fired along the line, and in regular order 

retreated. 

Many a mile had they marched, when at 

length the village of Plymouth 
Woke from its sleep, and arose, intent on 

its manifold labors. 
Sweet was the air and soft ; and slowly the 

smoke from the chimneys 
Rose over roofs of thatch, and pointed 

steadily eastward ; 
Men came forth from the doors, and paused 

and talked of the weather, 
Said that the wind had changed, and was 

blowing fair for the Mayflower ; 
Talked of their Captain's departure, and 

all the dangers that menaced, 
He being gone, the town, and what should 

be done in his absence. 
Merrily sang the birds, and the tender 

voices of women 
Consecrated with hymns the common cares 

of the household. 
Out of the sea rose the sun, and the billows 

rejoiced at his coming ; 
Beautiful were his feet on the purple tops 

of the mountains ; 
Beautiful on the sails of the Mayflower 

riding at anchor, 
Battered and blackened and worn by all 

the storms of the winter. 
Loosely against her masts was hanging and 

flapping her canvas, 
Rent by so many gales, and patched by the 

hands of the sailors. 
Suddenly from her side, as the sun rose 

over the ocean, 
Darted a puff of smoke, and floated sea- 
ward ; anon rang 
Loud over field and forest the cannon's 

roar, and the echoes 
Heard and repeated the sound, the signal- 
gun of departure ! 
Ah ! but with louder echoes replied the 

hearts of the people ! 
Meekly, in voices subdued, the chapter was 

read from the Bible, 
Meekly the prayer was begun, but ended 

in fervent entreaty ! 
Then from their houses in haste came forth 

the Pilgrims of Plymouth, 
Men and women and children, all hurrying 

down to the sea-shore, 



THE COURTSHIP OF MILES STANDISH 



«7S 



Eager, with tearful eyes, to say farewell to 

the Mayflower, 
Homeward bound o'er the sea, and leaving 

them here in the desert. 

Foremost among them was Alden. All 
night he had lain without slum- 
ber, 

Turning and tossing about in the heat and 
unrest of his fever. 

He had beheld Miles Standish, who came 
back late from the council, 

Stalking into the room, and heard him mut- 
ter and murmur ; 

Sometimes it seemed a prayer, and some- 
times it sounded like swearing. 

Once he had come to the bed, and stood 
there a moment in silence ; 

Then he had turned away, and said : " I 
will not awake him ; 

Let him sleep on, it is best ; for what is the 
use of more talking ! " 

Then he extinguished the light, and threw 
himself down on his pallet, 

Dressed as he was, and ready to start at 
the break of the morning, — 

Covered himself with the cloak he had 
worn in his campaigns in Flan- 
ders, — 

Slept as a soldier sleeps in his bivouac, 
ready for action. 

But with the dawn he arose ; in the twilight 
Alden beheld him 

Put on his corselet of steel, and all the rest 
of his armor, 

Buckle about his waist his trusty blade of 
Damascus, 

Take from the corner his musket, and so 
stride out of the chamber. 

Often the heart of the youth had burned 
and yearned to embrace him, 

Often his lips had essayed to speak, im- 
ploring for pardon ; 

All the old friendship came back, with its 
tender and grateful emotions ; 

But his pride overmastered the nobler na- 
ture within him, — 

Pride, and the sense of his wrong, and the 
burning fire of the insult. 

So he beheld his friend departing in anger, 
but spake not, 

Saw him go forth to danger, perhaps to 
death, and he spake not ! 

Then he arose from his bed, and heard 
what the people were saying, 



Joined in the talk at the door, with Stephen 
and Richard and Gilbert, 

Joined in the morning prayer, and in the 
reading of Scripture, 

And, with the others, in haste went hurry- 
ing down to the sea-shore, 

Down to the Plymouth Rock, that had been 
to their feet as a doorstep 

Into a world unknown, — the corner-stone 
of a nation ! 

There with his boat was the Master, 

already a little impatient 
Lest he should lose the tide, or the wind 

might shift to the eastward, 
Square-built, hearty, and strong, with an 

odor of ocean about him, 
Speaking with this one and that, and cram- 
ming letters and parcels 
Into his pockets capacious, and messages 

mingled together 
Into his narrow brain, till at last he was 

wholly bewildered. 
Nearer the boat stood Alden, with one foot 

placed on the gunwale, 
One still firm on the rock, and talking at 

times with the sailors, 
Seated erect on the thwarts, all ready and 

eager for starting. 
He too was eager to go, and thus put an 

end to his anguish, 
Thinking to fly from despair, that swifter 

than keel is or canvas, 
Thinking to drown in the sea the ghost 

that would rise and pursue him. 
But as he gazed on the crowd, he beheld 

the form of Priscilla 
Standing dejected among them, unconscious 

of all that was passing. 
Fixed were her eyes upon his, as if she di- 
vined his intention, 
Fixed with a look so sad, so reproachful, 

imploring, and patient, 
That with a sudden revulsion his heart re- 
coiled from its purpose, 
As from the verge of a crag, where one 

step more is destruction. 
Strange is the heart of man, with its quick, 

mysterious instincts ! 
Strange is the life of man, and fatal or 

fated are moments, 
Whereupon turn, as on hinges, the gates of 

the wall adamantine ! 
" Here I remain ! " he exclaimed, as he 

looked at the heavens above him, 



176 



THE COURTSHIP OF MILES STANDISH 



Thanking the Lord whose breath had scat- 
tered the mist and the madness, 

Wherein, blind and lost, to death he was 
staggering headlong. 

"Tender snow-white cloud, that floats in 
the ether above me, 

Seems like a hand that is pointing and beck- 
oning over the ocean. 

There is another hand, that is not so spec- 
tral and ghost-like, 

Holding me, drawing me back, and clasp- 
ing mine for protection. 

Float, O hand of cloud, and vanish away in 
the ether ! 

Roll thyself up like a fist, to threaten and 
daunt me ; I heed not 

Either your warning or menace, or any 
omen of evil ! 

There is no land so sacred, no air so pure 
and so wholesome, 

As is the air she breathes, and the soil that 
is pressed by her footsteps. 

Here for her sake will I stay, and like an 
invisible presence 

Hover around her forever, protecting, sup- 
porting her weakness ; 

Yes ! as my foot was the first that stepped 
on this rock at the landing, 

So, with the blessing of God, shall it be the 
last at the leaving ! " 

Meanwhile the Master alert, but with dig- 
nified air and important, 
Scanning with watchful eye the tide and 

the wind and the weather, 
Walked about on the sands, and the people 

crowded around him 
Saying a few last words, and enforcing his 

careful remembrance. 
Then, taking each by the hand, as if he 

were grasping a tiller, 
Into the boat he sprang, and in haste 

shoved off to his vessel, 
Glad in his heart to get rid of all this worry 

and flurry, 
Glad to be gone from a land of sand and 

sickness and sorrow, 
Short allowance of victual, and plenty of 

nothing but Gospel ! 
Lost in the sound of the oars was the last 

farewell of the Pilgrims. 
O strong hearts and true ! not one went 

back in the Mayflower ! 
$o, not one looked back, who had set his 

hand to this ploughing t 



Soon were heard on board the shouts 

and songs of the sailors 
Heaving the windlass round, and hoisting 

the ponderous anchor. 
Then the yards were braced, and all sails 

set to the west-wind, 
Blowing steady and strong ; and the Majv 

flower sailed from the harbor, 
Rounded the point of the Gurnet, and leav- 
ing far to the southward 
Island and cape of sand, and the Field of 

the First Encounter, 
Took the wind on her quarter, and stood 

for the open Atlantic, 
Borne on the send of the sea, and the swell* 

ing hearts of the Pilgrims. 

Long in silence they watched the reced- 
ing sail of the vessel, 
Much endeared to them all, as something 

living and human ; 
Then, as if filled with the spirit, and wrapt 

in a vision prophetic, 
Baring his hoary head, the excellent Elder 

of Plymouth 
Said, " Let us pray ! " and they prayed, 

and thanked the Lord and took 

courage. 
Mournfully sobbed the waves at the base 

of the rock, and above them 
Bowed and whispered the wheat on the 

hill of death, and their kindred 
Seemed to awake in their graves, and to 

join in the prayer that they ut- 
tered. 
Sun-illumined and white, on the eastern 

verge of the ocean 
Gleamed the departing sail, like a marble 

slab in a graveyard ; 
Buried beneath it lay forever all hope of 

escaping. 
Lo ! as they turned to depart, they saw the 

form of an Indian, 
Watching them from the hill ; but while 

they spake with each other, 
Pointing with outstretched hands, and say- 
ing, " Look ! " he had vanished. 
So they returned to their homes ; but Alden 

lingered a little, 
Musing alone on the shore, and watching 

the wash of the billows 
Round the base of the rock, and the sparkle 

and flash of the sunshine, 
Like the spirit of God, moving visibly ovei 

the waters. 



THE COURTSHIP OF MILES STANDISH 



177 



VI 



PRISCILLA 



Thus for a while he stood, and mused by 

the shore of the oceau, 
Thinking of many things, and most of all 

of Priscilla ; 
And as if thought had the power to draw 

to itself, like the loadstone, 
Whatsoever it touches, by subtiie laws of 

its nature, 
Lo ! as he turned to depart, Priscilla was 

standing beside him. 

" Are you so much offended, you will not 



speak to 



said she. 



" Am I so much to blame, that yesterday, 

when you were pleading 
Warmly the cause of another, my heart, 

impulsive and wayward, 
Pleaded your own, and spake out, forgetful 

perhaps of decorum ? 
Certainly you can forgive me for speaking 

so frankly, for saying 
What I ought not to have said, yet now I 

can never unsay it ; 
For there are moments in life, when the 

heart is so full of emotion, 
That if by chance it be shaken, or into its 

depths like a pebble 
Drops some careless word, it overflows, and 

its secret, 
Spilt on the ground like water, can. never 

be gathered together. 
Yesterday I was shocked, when I heard 

you speak of Miles Standish, 
Praising his virtues, transforming his very 

defects into virtues, 
Praising his courage and strength, and even 

his fighting in Flanders, 
As if by fighting alone you could win the 

heart of a woman, 
Quite overlooking yourself and the rest, in 

exalting your hero. 
Therefore I spake as I did, by an irre- 
sistible impulse. 
Xou will forgive me, I hope, for the sake 

of the friendship between us, 
Which is too true and too sacred to be so 

easily broken ! " 
Thereupon answered John Alden, the 

scholar, the friend of Miles Stan- 
dish : 



" I was not angry with you, with myself 
alone I was angry, 

Seeing how badly I managed the matter 
I had in my keeping." 

" No ! " interrupted the maiden, with answer 
prompt and decisive ; 

" No ; you were angry with me, for speak- 
ing so frankly and freely. 

It was wrong, I acknowledge ; for it is the 
fate of a woman 

Long to be patient and silent, to wait like 
a ghost that is speechless, 

Till . some questioning voice dissolves the 
spell of its silence. 

Hence is the inner life of so many suffering 
women 

Sunless and silent and deep, like subter- 
ranean rivers 

Running through caverns of darkness, un- 
heard, unseen, and unfruitful, 

Chafing their channels of stone, with end- 
less and profitless murmurs." 

Thereupon answered John Alden, the young 
man, the lover of women : 

" Heaven forbid it, Priscilla ; and truly 
they seem to me always 

More like the beautiful rivers that watered 
the garden of Eden, 

More like the river Euphrates, through 
deserts of Havilah flowing, 

Filling the land with delight, and memories 
sweet of the garden ! " 

" Ah, by these words, I can see," again in- 
terrupted the maiden, 

" How very little you prize me, or care for 
what I am saying. 

When from the depths of my heart, in pain 
and with secret misgiving, 

Frankly I speak to you, asking for sym- 
pathy only and kindness, 

Straightway you take up my words, that 
are plain and direct and in ear- 
nest, 

Turn them away from their meaning, and 
answer with flattering phrases. 

This is not right, is not just, is not true to 
the best that is in you ; 

For I know and esteem you, and feel that 
your nature is noble, 

Lifting mine up to a higher, a more ethereal 
level. 

Therefore I value your friendship, and feel 
it perhaps the more keenly 

If you say aught that implies I am only as 
one among many, 



178 



THE COURTSHIP OF MILES STAND1SH 



If you make use of those common and com- 
plimentary phrases 

Most men think so fine, in dealing and 
speaking with women, 

But which women reject as insipid, if not 
as insulting." 

Mute and amazed was Alden ; and lis- 
tened and looked at Priscilla, 

Thinking he never had seen her more fair, 

more divine in her beauty- 
He who but yesterday pleaded so glibly the 
cause of another, 

Stood there embarrassed and silent, and 
seeking in vain for an answer. 

So the maiden went on, and little divined 
or imagined 

What was at work in his heart, that made 
him so awkward and speechless. 

" Let us, then, be what we are, and speak 
what we think, and in all things 

Keep ourselves loyal to truth, and the sa- 
cred professions of friendship. 

It is no secret I tell you, nor am I ashamed 
to declare it ; 

I have liked to be with you, to see you, to 
speak with you always. 

So I was hurt at your words, and a little 
affronted to hear you 

Urge me to marry your friend, though 
he were the Captain Miles Stan- 
dish. 

For I must tell you the truth : much more 
to me is your friendship 

Than all the love he could give, were he 
twice the hero you think him." 

Then she extended her hand, and Alden, 
who eagerly grasped it, 

Felt all the wounds in his heart, that were 
aching and bleeding so sorely, 

Healed by the touch of that hand, and he 
said, with a voice full of feeling : 

" Yes, we must ever be friends ; and of all 
who offer you friendship 

Let me be ever the first, the truest, the 
nearest and dearest ! " 

Casting a farewell look at the glimmer- 
ing sail of the Mayflower, 

Distant, but still in sight, and sinking be- 
low the horizon, 

Homeward together they walked, with a 
strange, indefinite feeling, 

That all the rest had departed and left 
them alone in the desert. 



But, as they went through the fields in th< 

blessing and smile of the sunshine, 
Lighter grew their hearts, and Priscilla 

said very archly : 
" Now that our terrible Captain has gone 

in pursuit of the Indians, 
Where he is happier far than he would be 

commanding a household, 
You may speak boldly, and tell me of all 

that happened between you, 
When you returned last night, and said 

how ungrateful you found me." 
Thereupon answered John Alden, and told 

her the whole of the story, — 
Told her his own despair, and the direful 

wrath of Miles Standish. 
Whereat the maiden smiled, and said be- 
tween laughing and earnest, 
" He is a little chimney, and heated hot in 

a moment ! " 
But as he gently rebuked her, and told her 

how he had suffered, — 
How he hsl even determined to sail that 

day in the Mayflower, 
And had remained for her sake, on hearing 

the dangers that threatened, — 
All her manner was changed, and she said 

with a faltering accent, 
" Truly I thank you for this : how good 

you have been to me always ! " 

Thus, as a pilgrim devout, who toward 

Jerusalem journeys, 
Taking three steps in advance, and one 

reluctantly backward, 
Urged by importunate zeal, and withheld 

by pangs of contrition ; 
Slowly but steadily onward, receding yet 

ever advancing, 
Journeyed this Puritan youth to the Holj 

Land of his longings, 
Urged by the fervor of love, and withheld 

by remorseful misgivings. 



VII 

THE MARCH OF MILES STANDISH 

Meanwhile the stalwart Miles Standisli 
was marching steadily northward, 

Winding through forest and swamp, and 
along the trend of the sea-shore, 

All day long, with hardly a halt, the fire of 
his anger 



THE COURTSHIP OF MILES STANDISH 



179 



Burning and crackling within, and the sul- 
phurous odor of powder 
Seeming more sweet to his nostrils than all 

the scents of the forest. 
Silent and moody he went, and much he 

revolved his discomfort ; 
He who was used to success, and to easy 

victories always, 
Thus to be flouted, rejected, and laughed 

to scorn by a maiden, 
Thus to be mocked and betrayed by the 

friend whom most he had trusted ! 
Ah 1 't was too much to be borne, and he 

fretted and chafed in his armor ! 

" I alone am to blame," he muttered, 

" for mine was the folly. 
What has a rough old soldier, grown grim 

and gray in the harness, 
Used to the camp and its ways, to do with 

the wooing of maidens ? 
'T was but a dream, — let it pass, — let it 

vanish like so many others ! 
What I thought was a flower, is only a 

weed, and is worthless ; 
Out of my heart will I pluck it, and throw 

it away, and henceforward 
Be but a fighter of battles, a lover and 

wooer of dangers ! " 
Thus he revolved in his mind his sorry 

defeat and discomfort, 
While he was marching by day or lying at 

night in the forest, 
Looking up at the trees, and the constella- 
tions beyond them. 

After a three days' march he came to an 

Indian encampment 
Pitched on the edge of a meadow, between 

the sea and the forest ; 
Women at work by the tents, and warriors, 

horrid with war-paint, 
Seated about a fire, and smoking and talk- 
ing together ; 
Who, when they saw from afar the sudden 

approach of the white men, 
Saw the flash of the sun on breastplate and 

sabre and musket, 
Straightway leaped to their feet, and two, 

from among them advancing, 
Came to parley with Standish, and offer him 

furs as a present ; 
friendship was in their looks, but in their 

hearts there was hatred. 



Braves of the tribe were these, and brothers, 

gigantic in stature, 
Huge as Goliath of Gath, or the terrible 

Og, king of Bashan ; 
One was Pecksuot named, and the other 

was called Wattawamat. 
Round their necks were suspended theii 

knives in scabbards of wampum, 
Two-edged, trenchant knives, with points as 

sharp as a needle. 
Other arms had they none, for they were 

cunning and crafty. 
" Welcome, English ! " they said, — these 

words they had learned from the 

traders 
Touching at times on the coast, to barter 

and chaffer for peltries. 
Then in their native tongue they began to 

parley with Standish, 
Through his guide and interpreter, Hobo- 

mok, friend of the white man, 
Begging for blankets and knives, but mostly 

for muskets and powder, 
Kept by the white man, they said, con- 
cealed, with the plague, in his cel- 
lars, 
Ready to be let loose, and destroy his 

brother the red man ! 
But when Standish refused, and said he 

would give them the Bible, 
Suddenly changing their tone, they began 

to boast and to bluster. 
Then Wattawamat advanced with a stride 

in front of the other, 
And, with a lofty demeanor, thus vaunt- 

ingly spake to the Captain : 
" Now Wattawamat can see, by the fiery 

eyes of the Captain, 
Angry is he in his heart ; but the heart of 

the brave Wattawamat 
Is not afraid at the sight. He was not 

born of a woman, 
But on a mountain at night, from an oak- 
tree riven by lightning, 
Forth he sprang at a bound, with all his 

weapons about him, 
Shouting, * Who is there here to fight with 

the brave Wattawamat ? ' " 
Then he unsheathed his knife, and, whet- 
ting the blade on his left hand, 
Held it aloft and displayed a. wonean's face 

on the handle ; 
Saying, with bitter expression and look of 

sinister meaning : 



iSo 



THE COURTSHIP OF MILES STANDISH 



" I have another at home, with the face of 

a ruaii on the handle ; 
By and by they shall marry ; and there 

will be plenty of children I " 

Then stood Pecks uot forth, self- vaunt- 
ing, insulting Miles Standish : 

While with his fingers he patted the knife 
that hung at his bosom, 

Drawing it half from its sheath, and plung- 
ing it back, as he muttered, 

" By and by it shall see ; it shall eat ; ah, 
ha ! but shall speak not ! 

This is the mighty Captain the white men 
have sent to destroy us ! 

He is a little man ; let him go and work 
with the women ! " 

Meanwhile Standish had noted the faces 

and figures of Indians 
Peeping and creeping about from bush to 

tree in the forest, 
Feigning to look for game, with arrows set 

on their bow-strings, 
Drawing about him still closer and closer 

the net of their ambush. 
But undaunted he stood, and dissembled 

and treated them smoothly ; 
So the old chronicles say, that were writ in 

the days of the fathers. 
But when he heard their defiance, the boast, 

the taunt, and the insult, 
All the hot blood of his race, of Sir Hugh 

and of Thurston de Standish, 
Boiled and beat in his heart, and swelled in 

the veins of his temples. 
Headlong he leaped on the boaster, and, 

snatching his knife from its scab- 
bard, 
Plunged it into his heart, and, reeling back- 
ward, the savage 
Fell with his face to the sky, and a fiend- 
like fierceness upon it. 
Straight there arose from the forest the 

awful sound of the war-whoop. 
And, like a flurry of snow on the whistling 

wind of December, 
Swift and sudden and keen came a flight 

of feathery arrows. 
Then came a cloud of smoke, and out of 

the cloud came the lightning, 
Out of the lightning thunder ; and death 

unseen ran before it. 
Frightened the savages fled for shelter in 

swamp and in thicket, 



Hotly pursued and beset ; but their sachem^ 

the brave Wattawamat, 
Fled not ; he was dead. Unswerving and 

swift had a bullet 
Passed through his brain, and he fell witfe 

both hands clutching the green 

sward, 
Seeming in death to hold back from his fow 

the land of his fathers. 

There on the flowers of the meadow the 
warriors lay, and above them, 

Silent, with folded arms, stood Hobomok, 
friend of the white man. 

Smiling at length he exclaimed to the stal- 
wart Captain of Plymouth : ■ — 

" Pecksuot bragged very loud, of his cour- 
age, his strength, and his stature, — - 

Mocked the great Captain, and called him 
a little man ; but I see now 

Big enough have you been to lay him 
speechless before you ! " 

Thus the first battle was fought and won 

by the stalwart Miles Standish. 
When the tidings thereof were brought tr 

the village of Plymouth, 
And as a trophy of war the head of the 

brave Wattawamat 
Scowled from the roof of the fort, which at 

once was a church and a fortress, 
All who beheld it rejoiced, and praised the 

Lord, and took courage. 
Only Priscilla averted her face from this 

spectre of terror, 
Thanking God in her heart that she had not 

married Miles Standish ; 
Shrinking, fearing almost, lest, coming 

home from his battles, 
He should lay claim to her hand, as the 

prize and reward of his valor. 



VIII 
THE SPINNING-WHEEL 

Month after month passed away, and in 

Autumn the ships of the merchants 
Came with kindred and friends, with cattle 

and corn for the Pilgrims. 
All in the village was peace ; the men were 

intent on their labors, 
Busy with hewing and building, with 

garden-plot and with merestead, 



THE COURTSHIP OF MILES STANDISH 



181 



Busy with breaking the glebe, and mowing 
the grass in the meadows, 

Searching the sea for its fish, and hunting 
the deer in the forest. 

All in the village was peace ; but at times 
the rumor of warfare 

Filled the air with alarm, and the appre- 
hension of danger. 

Bravely the stalwart Standish was scouring 
the land with his forces, 

Waxing valiant in fight and defeating the 
alien armies, 

Till his name had become a sound of fear 
to the nations. 

Amger was still in his heart, but at times 
the remorse and contrition 

Which in all noble natures succeed the pas- 
sionate outbreak, 

Came like a rising tide, that encounters the 
rush of a river, 

Staying its current awhile, but making it 
bitter and brackish. 

Meanwhile Alden at home had built him 
a new habitation, 

Solid, substantial, of timber rough -hewn 
from the firs of the forest. 

Wooden-barred was the door, and the roof 
was covered with rushes ; 

Latticed the windows were, and the win- 
dow-panes were of paper, 

Oiled to admit the light, while wind and 
rain were excluded. 

There too he dug a well, and around 
it planted an orchard : 

Still may be seen to this day some trace of 
the well and the orchard. 

Close to the house was the stall, where, safe 
and secure from annoyance, 

Raghorn, the snow-white bull, that had 
fallen to Alden's allotment 

In the division of cattle, might ruminate in 
the night-time 

Over the pastures he cropped, made fra- 
grant by sweet pennyroyal. 

Oft when his labor was finished, with 

eager feet would the dreamer 
Follow the pathway that ran through the 

woods to the house of Priscilla, 
Led by illusions romantic and subtile 

deceptions of fancy, 
Pleasure disguised as duty, and love in the 

semblance of friendship. 



Ever of her he thought, when he fashioned 

the walls of his dwelling ; 
Ever of her he thought, when he delved 

in the soil of his garden ; 
Ever of her he thought, when he read in 

his Bible on Sunday 
Praise of the virtuous woman, as she is 

described in the Proverbs, — 
How the heart of her husband doth safely 

trust in her always, 
Plow all the days of her life she will do him 

good, and not evil, 
How she seeketh the wool and the flax and 

worketh with gladness, 
How she layeth her hand to the spindle and 

holdeth the distaff, 
How she is not afraid of the snow for her- 
self or her household, 
Knowing her household are clothed with 

the scarlet cloth of her weaving ! 

So as she sat at her wheel one afternoon 

in the Autumn, 
Alden, who opposite sat, and was watching 

her dexterous fingers, 
As if the thread she was spinning were that 

of his life and his fortune, 
After a pause in their talk, thus spake to 

the sound of the spindle. 
" Truly, Priscilla," he said, " when I see 

you spinning and spinning, 
Never idle a moment, but thrifty and 

thoughtful of others, 
Suddenly you are transformed, are visibly 

changed in a moment ; 
You are no longer Priscilla, but Bertha 

the Beautiful Spinner." 
Here the light foot on the treadle grew 

swifter and swifter ; the spindle 
Uttered an angry snarl, and the thread 

snapped short in her fingers ; 
While the impetuous speaker, not heeding 

the mischief, continued : 
" You are the beautiful Bertha, the spinner, 

the queen of Helvetia ; 
She whose story I read at a stall in the 

streets of Southampton, 
Who, as she rode on her palfrey, o'er 

valley and meadow and moun- 
tain, 
Ever was spinning her thread from a distaff 

fixed to her saddle. 
She was so thrifty and good, that her name 

passed into a proverb. 



182 



THE COURTSHIP OF MILES STANDISH 



So shall it be with, your own, when the 
spinning-wheel shall no longer 

Hum in the house of the farmer, and fill 
its chambers with music. 

Then shall the mothers, reproving, relate 
how it was in their childhood, 

Praising the good old times, and the days 
of Priscilla the spinner ! " 

Straight uprose from her wheel the beau- 
tiful Puritan maiden, 

Pleased with the praise of her thrift from 
him whose praise was the sweetest, 

Drew from the reel on the table a snowy 
skein of her spinning, 

Thus making answer, meanwhile, to the 
flattering phrases of Alden : 

1 Come, you must not be idle ; if I am a 
pattern for housewives, 

Show yourself equally worthy of being 
the model of husbands. 

Hold this skein on your hands, while I wind 
it, ready for knitting ; 

Then who knows but hereafter, when fash- 
ions have changed and the manners, 

Fathers may talk to their sons of the good 
old times of John Alden ! " 

Thus, with a jest and a laugh, the skein on 
his hands she adjusted, 

He sitting awkwardly there, with his arms 
extended before him, 

She standing graceful, erect, and winding 
the thread from his fingers, 

Sometimes chiding a little his clumsy man- 
ner of holding, 

Sometimes touching his hands, as she dis- 
entangled expertly 

Twist or knot in the yarn, unawares — for 
how could she help it ? — 

Sending electrical thrills through every 
nerve in his body. 

Lo ! in the midst of this scene, a breath- 
less messenger entered, 
Bringing in hurry and heat the terrible 

news from the village. 
Yes ; Miles Standish was dead ! — an Indian 

had brought them the tidings, — 
Slain by a poisoned arrow, shot down in the 

front of the battle, 
Into an ambush beguiled, cut off with the 

whole of his forces ; 
All the town would be burned, and all the 

people be murdered ! 
Such were the tidings of evil that burst on 

the hearts of the hearers. 



Silent and statue-like stood Priscilla, hei 

face looking backward 
Still at the face of the speaker, her arms 

uplifted in horror ; 
But John Alden, upstarting, as if the barb 

of the arrow 
Piercing the heart of his friend had struck 

his own, and had sundered 
Once and forever the bonds that held him 

bound as a captive, 
Wild with excess of sensation, the awful 

delight of his freedom, 
Mingled with pain and regret, unconscious 

of what he was doing, 
Clasped, almost with a groan, the motion- 
less form of Priscilla, 
Pressing her close to his heart, as forever 

his own, and exclaiming : 
" Those whom the Lord hath united, let no 

man put them asunder ! " 

Even as rivulets twain, from distant and 

separate sources, 
Seeing each other afar, as they leap from 

the rocks, and pursuing 
Each one its devious path, but drawing 

nearer and nearer, 
Rush together at last, at their trysting-place 

in the forest ; 
So these lives that had run thiis far in 

separate channels, 
Coming in sight of each other, then swerv- 
ing and flowing asunder, 
Parted by barriers strong, but drawing 

nearer and nearer, 
Rushed together at last, and one was lost 

in the other. 



IX 



THE WEDDING-DAY 

Forth from the curtain of clouds, from 

the tent of purple and scarlet, 
Issued the sun, the great High -Priest, in 

his garments resplendent, 
Holiness unto the Lord, in letters of light, 

on his forehead, 
Round the hem of his robe the golden bells 

and pomegranates. 
Blessing the world he came, and the bars 

of vapor beneath him 
Gleamed like a grate of brass, and the sea 

at his feet was a laver ! 



THE COURTSHIP OF MILES STANDISH 



183 



This was the wedding morn of Priscilla 

the Puritan maiden. 
Friends were assembled together ; the 

Elder and Magistrate also 
Graced the scene with their presence, and 

stood like the Law and the Gospel, 
One with the sanction of earth and one with 

the blessing of heaven. 
Simple and brief was the wedding, as that 

of Ruth and of Boaz. 
Softly the youth and the maiden repeated 

the words of betrothal, 
Taking each other for husband and wife in 

the Magistrate's presence, 
After the Puritan way, and the laudable 

custom of Holland. 
Fervently then, and devoutly, the excellent 

Elder of Plymouth 
Prayed for the hearth and the home, that 

were founded that day in affection, 
Speaking of life and of death, and implor- 
ing Divine benedictions. 

Lo ! when the service was ended, a form 

appeared on the threshold, 
Clad in armor of steel, a sombre and sor- 
rowful figure ! 
Why does the bridegroom start and stare 

at the strange apparition ? 
Why does the bride turn pale, and hide her 

face on his shoulder ? 
Is it a phantom of air, — a bodiless, spectral 

illusion ? 
Is it a ghost from the grave, that has come 

to forbid the betrothal ? 
Long had it stood there unseen, a guest 

uninvited, unwelcomed ; 
Over its clouded eyes there had passed at 

times an expression 
Softening the gloom and revealing the warm 

heart hidden beneath them, 
As when across the sky the driving rack of 

the rain-cloud 
Grows for a moment thin, and betrays the 

sun by its brightness. 
Once it had lifted its hand, and moved its 

lips, but was silent, 
As if an iron will had mastered the fleeting 

intention. 
But when were ended the troth and the 

prayer and the last benediction, 
Into the room it strode, and the people be- 
held with amazement 
Bodily there in his armor Miles Standish, 

the Captain of Plymouth ! 



Grasping the bridegroom's hand, he said 

with emotion, " Forgive me ! 
I have been angry and hurt, — too long 

have I cherished the feeling ; 
I have been cruel and hard, but now, thank 

God ! it is ended. 
Mine is the same hot blood that leaped in 

the veins of Hugh Standish, 
Sensitive, swift to resent, but as swift in 

atoning for error. 
Never so much as now was Miles Standish 

the friend of John Alden." 
Thereupon answered the bridegroom : "Let 

all be forgotten between us, — 
All save the dear old friendship, and that 

shall grow older and dearer ! " 
Then the Captain advanced, and, bowing, 

saluted Priscilla, 
Gravely, and after the manner of old-fash- 
ioned gentry in England, 
Something of camp and of court, of town 

and of country, commingled, 
Wishing her joy of her wedding, and loudly 

lauding her husband. 
Then he said with a smile : " I should have 

remembered the adage, — 
If you would be well served, you must serve 

yourself ; and moreover, 
No man can gather cherries in Kent at the 

season of Christmas ! " 

Great was the people's amazement, and 

greater yet their rejoicing, 
Thus to behold once more the sunburnt 

face of their Captain, 
Whom they had mourned as dead ; and they 

gathered and crowded about him, 
Eager to see him and hear him, forgetful 

of bride and of bridegroom, 
Questioning, answering, laughing, and each 

interrupting the other, 
Till the good Captain declared, being quite 

overpowered and bewildered, 
He had rather by far break into an Indian 

encampment, 
Than come again to a wedding to which he 

had not been invited. 

Meanwhile the bridegroom went forth 

and stood with the bride at the 

doorway, 
Breathing the perfumed air of that warm 

and beautiful morning. 
Touched with autumnal tints, but lonely 

and sad in the sunshine, 



184 



BIRDS OF PASSAGE 



Lay extended before them the land of toil 

and privation ; 
There were the graves of the dead, and the 

barren waste of the sea-shore, 
There the familiar fields, the groves of 

pine, and the meadows ; 
But to their eyes transfigured, it seemed 

as the Garden of Eden, 
Filled with the presence of God, whose 

voice was the sound of the ocean. 

Soon was their vision disturbed by the 

noise and stir of departure, 
Friends coming forth from the house, and 

impatient of longer delaying, 
Each with his plan for the day, and the 

work that was left uncompleted. 
Then from a stall near at hand, amid ex- 
clamations of wonder, 
Alden the thoughtful, the careful, so happy, 

so proud of Priscilla, 
Brought out his snow-white bull, obeying 

the hand of its master, 
Led by a cord that was tied to an iron ring 

in its nostrils, 
Covered with crimson cloth, and a cushion 

placed for a saddle. 
She should not walk, he said, through the 

dust and heat of the noonday ; 
Nay, she should ride like a queen, not plod 

along like a peasant. 
Somewhat alarmed at first, but reassured 

by the others, 
Placing her hand on the cushion, her foot 

in the hand of her husband, 



Gayly, with joyous laugh, Priscilla mounted 

her palfrey. 
" Nothing is wanting now," he said with a- 

smile, " but the distaff ; 
Then you would be in truth mv queen, my 

beautiful Bertha ! " 

Onward the bridal procession now 

moved to their new habitation, 
Happy husband and wife, and friends con- 

versing together. 
Pleasantly murmured the brook, as they 

crossed the ford in the forest, 
Pleased with the image that passed, like a 

dream of love, through its bosom, 
Tremulous, floating in air, o'er the depths 

of the azure abysses. 
Down through the golden leaves the sun 

was pouring his splendors, 
Gleaming on purple grapes, that, from 

branches above them suspended, 
Mingled their odorous breath with the balm 

of the pine and the fir-tree, 
Wild and sweet as the clusters that grew 

in the valley of Eshcol. 
Like a picture it seemed of the primitive, 

pastoral ages, 
Fresh with the youth of the world, and re-. 

calling Rebecca and Isaac, 
Old and yet ever new, and simple and beau- 
tiful always, 
Love immortal and young in the endless 

succession of lovers. 
So through the Plymouth woods passed 

onward the bridal procession. 



BIRDS OF PASSAGE 



. . . come i gru van eantando lor lai, 
Facendo in aer di se lunga riga. 



Dante. 



FLIGHT THE FIRST 

BIRDS OF PASSAGE 

Black shadows fall 
From the lindens tall, 



That lift aloft their massive wall 
Against the southern sky; 

And from the realms 
Of the shadowy elms 
A tide-like darkness overwhelms 
The fields that round us lie. 



PROMETHEUS 



;8S 



But the night is fair, 
And everywhere 
A warm, soft vapor fills the air, 
And distant sounds seem near ; 

And above, in the light 
Of the star-lit night, 
Swift birds of passage wing their flight 
Through the dewy atmosphere. 

I hear the beat 
Of their pinions fleet, 
As from the land of snow and sleet 
They seek a southern lea. 

I hear the cry 
Of their voices high 
Falling dreamily through the sky, 
But their forms I cannot see. 

Oh, say not so i 
Those sounds that flow 
In murmurs of delight and woe 
Come not from wings of birds. 

They are the throngs 
Of the poet's songs, 

Murmurs of pleasures, and pains, and 
wrongs, 
The sound of winged words. 

This is the cry 
Of souls, that high 
On toiling, beating pinions, fly, 
Seeking a warmer clime. 

From their distant flight 
Through realms of light 
It falls into our world of night, 

With the murmuring sound of rhyme. 



PROMETHEUS 

OR THE POET'S FORETHOUGHT 

The two poems Prometheus and Epimeiheus were 
originally conceived as a uingle poem, bearing both the 
names in the title. 

Of Prometheus, how undaunted 

On Olympus' shining bastions 
His audacious foot he planted, 
Myths are told and songs are chanted, 

Full of promptings and suggestions. 



Beautiful is the tradition 

Of that flight through heavenly portafc? 
The old classic superstition 
Of the theft and the transmission 

Of the fire of the Immortals ! 

First the deed of noble daring, 

Born of heavenward aspiration, 

Then the fire with mortals sharing, 

Then the vulture, — the despairing 

Cry of pain on crags Caucasian. 

All is but a symbol painted 

Of the Poet, Prophet, Seer ; 
Only those are crowned and sainted 
Who with grief have been acquainted, 

Making nations nobler, freer. 

In their feverish exultations, 

In their triumph and their yearning, 
In their passionate pulsations, 
In their words among the nations, 
The Promethean fire is burning. 

Shall it, then, be unavailing, 

All this toil for human culture ? 
Through the cloud-rack, dark and trailing 
Must they see above them sailing 
O'er life's barren crags the vulture ? 

Such a fate as this was Dante's, 

By defeat and exile maddened ; 
Thus were Milton and Cervantes, 
Nature's priests and Corybantes, 
By affliction touched and saddened. 

But the glories so transcendent 

That around their memories cluster, 
And, on all their steps attendant, 
Make their darkened lives resplendent 
With such gleams of inward lustre ! 

All the melodies mysterious, 

Through the dreary darkness chanted ; 
Thoughts in attitudes imperious, 
Voices soft, and deep, and serious, 

Words that whispered, songs that 
haunted ! 

All the soul in rapt suspension, 

All the quivering, palpitating 
Chords of life in utmost tension, 
With the fervor of invention, 

With the rapture of creating I 



i86 



BIRDS OF PASSAGE 



Ah, Prometheus ! heaven-scaling ! 

In such hours of exultation 
Even the faintest heart, unquailing, 
Might behold the vulture sailing 

Round the cloudy crags Caucasian ! 

Though to all there be not given 

Strength for such sublime endeavor, 
Thus to scale the walls of heaven, 
And to leaven with fiery leaven, 
All the hearts of men forever ; 

5Tet all bards, whose hearts unblighted 

Honor and believe the presage, 
Hold aloft their torches lighted, 
Gleaming through the realms benighted, 
As they onward bear the message ! 



EPIMETHEUS 

OR THE POET'S AFTERTHOUGHT 

Have I dreamed ? or was it real, 

What I saw as in a vision, 
When to marches hymeneal 
In the land of the Ideal 

Moved my thought o'er Fields Elysian ? 

What ! are these the guests whose glances 
Seemed like sunshine gleaming round me? 

These the wild, bewildering fancies, 

That with dithyrambic dances 

As with magic circles bound me ? 

Ah ! how cold are their caresses ! 

Pallid cheeks, and haggard bosoms ! 
Spectral gleam their snow-white dresses, 
And from loose, dishevelled tresses 

Fall the hyacinthine blossoms ! 

O my songs ! whose winsome measures 
Filled my heart with secret rapture ! 

Children of my golden leisures ! 

Must even your delights and pleasures 
Fade and perish with the capture ? 

Fair they seemed, those songs sonorous, 

When they came to me unbidden ; 
Voices single, and in chorus, 
Like the wild birds singing o'er us 
In the dark of branches hidden. 

Disenchantment ! Disillusion 1 
Must each noble aspiration 



Come at last to this conclusion, 
Jarring discord, wild confusion, 
Lassitude, renunciation ? 

Not with steeper fall nor faster, 
From the sun's serene dominions, 

Not through brighter realms nor vaster, 

In swift ruin and disaster, 

Icarus fell with shattered pinions S 

Sweet Pandora ! dear Pandora! 

Why did mighty Jove create thee 
Coy as Thetis, fair as Flora, 
Beautiful as young Aurora, 

If to win thee is to hate thee ? 

No, not hate thee ! for this feeling 

Of unrest and long resistance 
Is but passionate appealing, 
A prophetic whisper stealing 

O'er the chords of our existence. 

Him whom thou dost once enamor, 

Thou, beloved, never leanest ; 
In life's discord, strife, and clamor, 
Still he feels thy spell of glamour ; 
Him of Hope thou ne'er bereavest. 

Weary hearts by thee are lifted, 

Struggling souls by thee are strength 
ened, 

Clouds of fear asunder rifted, 

Truth from falsehood cleansed and sifted, 
Lives, like days in summer, lengthened ! 

Therefore art thou ever dearer, 

O my Sibyl, my deceiver ! 
For thou makest each mystery clearer, 
And the unattained seems nearer, 

When thou fillest my heart with fever ! 

Muse of all the Gifts and Graces ! 

Though the fields around us wither, 
There are ampler realms and spaces, 
Where no foot has left its traces : 

Let us turn and wander thither ! 



THE LADDER OF SAINT 
AUGUSTINE 

Saint Augustine ! well hast thou said, 
That of our vices we can frame 

A ladder, if we will but tread 

Beneath our feet each deed of shame ! 



u 



THE PHANTOM SHIP 



187 



All common things, each day's events, 
That with the hour begin and end, 

Our pleasures and our discontents, 
Are rounds by which we may ascend. 

The low desire, the base design, 
That makes another's virtues less ; 

The revel of the ruddy wine, 
And all occasions of excess ; 

The longing for ignoble things ; 

The strife for triumph more than truth ; 
The hardening of the heart, that brings 

Irreverence for the dreams of youth ; 

<U1 thoughts of ill ; all evil deeds, 
That have their root in thoughts of ill ; 

Whatever hinders or impedes 
The action of the nobler will ; — 

All these must first be trampled down 
Beneath our feet, if we would gain 

In the bright fields of fair renown 
The right of eminent domain. 

We have not wings, we cannot soar ; 

But we have feet to scale and climb 
By slow degrees, by more and more, 

The cloudy summits of our time. 

The mighty pyramids of stone 

That wedge-like cleave the desert airs, 

When nearer seen, and better known, 
Are but gigantic flights of stairs. 

The distant mountains, that uprear 
Their solid bastions to the skies, 

Are crossed by pathways, that appear 
As we to higher levels rise. 

The heights by great men reached and 
kept 

Were not attained by sudden flight, 
But they, while their companions slept, 

Were toiling upward in the night. 

Standing on what too long we bore 

With shoulders bent and downcast eyes, 

We may discern — unseen before — 
A path to higher destinies, 

Nor deem the irrevocable Past 
As wholly wasted, wholly vain, 

If, rising on its wrecks, at last 
To something nobler we attain. 



THE PHANTOM SHIP 

In Mather's Magnalia Christi, 

Of the old colonial time, 
May be found in prose the legend 

That is here set down in rhyme. 

A ship sailed from New Haven, 
And the keen and frosty airs, 

That filled her sails at parting, 

Were heavy with good men's prayers. 

" O Lord ! if it be thy pleasure " — 
Thus prayed the old divine — 

" To bury our friends in the ocean, 
Take them, for they are thine ! " 

But Master Lamberton muttered, 
And under his breath said he, 

" This ship is so crank and walty, 
I fear our grave she will be ! " 

And the ships that came from England, 
When the winter months were gone, 

Brought no tidmgs of this vessel 
Nor of Master Lamberton. 

This put the people to praying 

That the Lord would let them hear 

What in his greater wisdom 

He had done with friends so dear. 

And at last their prayers were answered : 

It was in the month of June, 
An hour before the sunset 

Of a windy afternoon, 

When, steadily steering landward, 

A ship was seen below, 
And they knew it was Lamberton, Master, 

Who sailed so long ago. 

On she came, with a cloud of canvas, 
Right against the wind that blew 

Until the eye could distinguish 
The faces of the crew. 

Then fell her straining topmasts, 
Hanging tangled in the shrouds, 

And her sails were loosened and lifted, 
And blown away like clouds. 

And the masts, with all their rigging, 
Fell slowly, one by one, 



188 



BIRDS OF PASSAGE 



And the hulk dilated and vanished, 
As a sea-mist in the sun ! 

And the people who saw this marvel 

Each said unto his friend, 
That this was the mould of their vessel, 

And thus her tragic end. 

And the pastor of the village 
Gave thanks to God in prayer, 

That, to quiet their troubled spirits, 
He had sent this Ship of Air. 



THE WARDEN OF THE CINQUE 
PORTS 

Written in October, 1852. The Warden was the Duke 
Of Wellington, who died September 13. 

A mist was driving down the British Channel, 

The day was just begun, 
And through the window-panes, on floor 
and panel, 

Streamed the red autumn sun. 

It glanced on flowing flag and rippling 
pennonj 
And the white sails of ships ; 
And, from the frowning rampart, the black 
cannon 
Hailed it with feverish lips. 

Sandwich and Romney, Hastings, Hithe, 
and Dover 
Were all alert that day, 
To see the French war-steamers speeding 
over, 
When the fog cleared away. 

Sullen and silent, and like couchant lions, 
Their cannon, through the night, 

Holding their breath, had watched, in grim 
defiance, 
The sea-coast opposite. 

And now they roared at drum-beat from 
their stations 
On every citadel ; 
Each answering each, with morning saluta- 
tions, 
That all was well. 

&nd down the coast, all taking up the 
burden, 
Replied the distant forts, 



As if to summon from his sleep the Warden 
And Lord of the Cinque Ports. 

Him shall no sunshine from the fields of 
azure, 
No drum-beat from the wall, 
No morning gun from the black fort's 
embrasure, 
Awaken with its call ! 

No more, surveying with an eye impartial 

The long line of the coast, 
Shall the gaunt figure of the old Field 
Marshal 

Be seen upon his post ! 

For in the night, unseen, a single warrior, 

In sombre harness mailed, 
Dreaded of man, and surnamed the De- 
stroyer, 

The rampart wall had scaled. 

He passed into the chamber of the sleeper, 

The dark and silent room, 
And as he entered, darker grew, and 
deeper, 

The silence and the gloom. 

He did not pause to parley or dissemble, 
But smote the Warden hoar ; 

Ah ! what a blow 1 that made all England 
tremble 
And groan from shore to shore. 

Meanwhile, without, the surly cannon 
waited, 

The sun rose bright o'erhead ; 
Nothing in Nature's aspect intimated 

That a great man was dead. 



HAUNTED HOUSES 

All houses wherein men have lived and 
died 
Are haunted houses. Through the open 
doors 
The harmless phantoms on their errands 
glide, 
With feet that make no sound upon th.6 
floors. 

We meet them at the doorway, on the 
stair, 
Along the passages they come and go f 



THE EMPEROR'S BIRD'S-NEST 



189 



Impalpable impressions on the air, 
A sense of something moving to and fro. 

There are more guests at table than the 
hosts 

Invited ; the illuminated hall 
Is thronged with quiet, inoffensive ghosts, 

As silent as the pictures on the wall. 

The stranger at my fireside cannot see 
The forms I see, nor hear the sounds I 
hear ; 

He but perceives what is ; while unto me 
All that has been is visible and clear. 

We have no title-deeds to house or lands ; 

Owners and occupants of earlier dates 
From graves forgotten stretch their dusty- 
hands, 
And hold in mortmain still their old 
estates. 

The spirit-world around this world of sense 
Floats like an atmosphere, and every- 
where 
Wafts through these earthly mists and 
vapors dense 
A vital breath of more ethereal air. 

Our little lives are kept in equipoise 
By opposite attractions and desires ; 

The struggle of the instinct that enjoys, 
And the more noble instinct that aspires. 

These perturbations, this perpetual jar 
Of earthly wants and aspirations high, 

Come from the influence of an unseen 
star, 
An undiscovered planet in our sky. 

And as the moon from some dark gate of 
cloud 
Throws o'er the sea a floating bridge of 
light, 
Across whose trembling planks our fancies 
crowd 
Into the realm of mystery and night, — 

So from the world of spirits there descends 
A bridge of light, connecting it with this, 

O'er whose unsteady floor, that sways and 
bends, 
Wander our thoughts above the dark 



IN THE CHURCHYARD AT CAM- 
BRIDGE 

In the village churchyard she lies, 
Dust is in her beautiful eyes, 

No more she breathes, nor feels, no? 
stirs ; 
At her feet and at her head 
Lies a slave to attend the dead, 

But their dust is white as hers. 

Was she, a lady of high degree, 
So much in love with the vanity 

And foolish pomp of this world of ours ? 
Or was it Christian charity, 
And lowliness and humility, 

The richest and rarest of all dowers ? 

Who shall tell us ? No one speaks ; 
No color shoots into those cheeks, 

Either of anger or of pride, 
At the rude question we have asked ; 
Nor will the mystery be unmasked 

By those who are sleeping at her side. 

Hereafter ? — And do you think to look 
On the terrible pages of that Book 

To find her failings, faults, and errors ? 
Ah, you will then have other cares, 
In your own shortcomings and despairs, 

In your own secret sins and terrors ! 



THE EMPEROR'S BIRD'S-NEST 

Once the Emperor Charles of Spain, 

With his swarthy, grave commanders, 
I forget in what campaign, 
Long besieged, in mud and rain, 
Some old frontier town of Flanders. 

Up and down the dreary camp, 
In great boots of Spanish leather, 

Striding with a measured tramp, 

These Hidalgos, dull and damp, 

Cursed the Frenchmen, cursed the 
weather. 

Thus as to and fro they went 

Over upland and through hollow, 
Giving their impatience vent, 
Perched upon the Emperor's tent, 
In her nest, they spied a swallow. 



29° 



BIRDS OF PASSAGE 



Yes, it was a swallow's nest, 

Built of clay and hair of horses, 
Mane, or tail, or dragoon's crest, 
Found on hedge-rows east and west, 
After skirmish of the forces. 

Then an old Hidalgo said, 

As he twirled his gray mustachio, 
" Sure this swallow overhead 
Thinks the Emperor's tent a shed, 
And the Emperor but a Macho I " 

Hearing his imperial name 

Coupled with those words of malice, 
Half in anger, half in shame, 
Forth the great campaigner came 

Slowly from his canvas palace. 

" Let no hand the bird molest," 

Said he solemnly, " nor hurt her ! " 

Adding then, by way of jest, 

" Golondrina is my guest, 

'T is the wife of some deserter ! " 

Swift as bowstring speeds a shaft, 

Through the camp was spread the rumor, 

And the soldiers, as they quaffed 

Flemish beer at dinner, laughed 
At the Emperor's pleasant humor. 

So unharmed and unafraid 

Sat the swallow still and brooded, 

Till the constant cannonade 

Through the walls a breach had made, 
And the siege was thus concluded. 

Then the army, elsewhere bent, 
Struck its tents as if disbanding, 

Only not the Emperor's tent, 

For he ordered, ere he went, 

Very curtly, " Leave it standing ! " 

So it stood there all alone, 

Loosely flapping, torn and tattered, 
Till the brood was fledged and flown, 
Singing o'er those walls of stone 

Which the cannon-shot had shattered. 



THE TWO ANGELS 

Two angels, one of Life and one of Death, 
Passed o'er our village as the morning 
broke : 



The dawn was on their faces, and be- 
neath, 
The sombre houses hearsed with plumes 
of smoke. 

Their attitude and aspect were the same, 
Alike their features and their robes of 
white; 
But one was crowned with amaranth, as 
with flame, 
And one with asphodels, like flakes of 
light. 

I saw them pause on their celestial way; 
Then said I, with deep fear and doubt 
.oppressed, 
" Beat not so loud, my heart, lest thou be 
tray 
The place where thy beloved are at 
rest ! " 

And he who wore the crown of aspho- 
dels, 
Descending, at my door began to knock, 
And my soul sank within me, as in 
wells 
The waters sink before an earthquake's 
shock. 

I recognized the nameless agony, 

The terror and the tremor and the 
pain, 
That oft before had filled or haunted me, 
And now returned with threefold 
strength again. 

The door I opened to my heavenly guest, 
And listened, for I thought I heard God's 
voice ; 
And, knowing whatsoe'er he sent was 
best, 
Dared neither to lament nor to rejoice. 

Then with a smile, toat filled the house 
with light, 
"My errand, is not Death, but Life," he 
said; 
And ere I answer ;d, passing oat of 
sight, 
On his celestial embassy he sped. 

'T was at thy door, O friend ! and not at 
mine, 
The angel with tie amaranthine wreath. 



THE JEWISH CEMETERY AT NEWPORT 



191 



Pausing, descended, and with voice divine 
Whispered a word that had a sound like 
Death. 

Then fell upon the house a sudden gloom, 
A shadow on those features fair and 
thin; 
And softly, from that hushed and darkened 
room, 
Two angels issued, where but one went 
in. 

All is 0? God ! If he but wave his hand, 
The mists collect, the rain falls thick 
and loud, 
Till, with a smile of light on sea and 
land, 
Lo ! he looks back from the departing 
cloud. 

Angels of Life and Death alike are his; 
Without his leave they pass no threshold 
o'er; 
Who, then, would wish or dare, believing 
this, 
Against his messengers to shut the door ? 



DAYLIGHT AND MOONLIGHT 

In broad daylight, and at noon, 
Yesterday I saw the moon 
Sailing high, but faint and white, 
As a school-boy's paper kite. 

In broad daylight, yesterday, 
I read a Poet's mystic lay; 
And it seemed to me at most 
As a phantom, or a ghost. 

But at length the feverish day 
Like a passion died away, 
And the night, serene and still, 
Fell on village, vale, and hill. 

Then the moon, in all her pride, 
Like a spirit glorified, 
Filled and overflowed the night 
VVith revelations of her light. 

And the Poet's song again 
Passed like music through my brain; 
Night interpreted to me 
All its grace and mystery. 



THE JEWISH CEMETERY AT 
NEWPORT 

How strange it seems ! These Hebrews 
in their graves, 
Close by the street of this fair seapor' 
town, 
Silent beside the never-silent waves, 

At rest in all this moving up and 
down ! 

The trees are white with dust, that o'er 
their sleep 
Wave their broad curtains in the south- 
wind's breath, 
While underneath these leafy tents they 
keep 
The long, mysterious Exodus of Death. 

And these sepulchral stones, so old and 
brown, 
That pave with level flags their burial- 
place, 
Seem like the tablets of the Law, thrown 
down 
And broken by Moses at the mountain's 
base. 

The very names recorded here are strange, 
Of foreign accent, and of different 
climes ; 

Alvares and Rivera interchange 

With Abraham and Jacob of old times. 

" Blessed be God, for he created Death ! " 
The mourners said, "and Death is rest 
and peace; " 
Then added, in the certainty of faith, 
" And giveth Life that nevermore shall 
cease." 

Closed are the portals of their Synagogue, 
No Psalms of David now the silence 
break, 

No Rabbi reads the ancient Decalogue 
In the grand dialect the Prophets spake. 

Gone are the living, but the dead remain, 
And not neglected; for a hand un- 
seen, 
Scattering its bounty, like a summer rain, 
Still keeps their graves and their remem* 
brance green. 



102 



BIRDS OF PASSAGE 



How came they here ? What burst of Chris- 
tian hate, 
What persecution, merciless and blind, 
Drove o'er the sea — that desert deso- 
late — 
These Ishmaels and Hagars of man- 
kind? 

They lived in narrow streets and lanes ob- 
scure, 
Ghetto and Judenstrass, in mirk and 
mire ; 
Taught in the school of patience to endure 
The life of anguish and the death of 
fire. 

A.11 their lives long, with the unleavened 
bread 
And bitter herbs of exile and its fears, 
The wasting famine of the heart they 
fed, 
And slaked its thirst with marah of their 
tears. 

Anathema maranatha ! was the cry 

That rang from town to town, from 
street to street: 
At every gate the accursed Mordecai 
Was mocked and jeered, and spurned by 
Christian feet. 

Pride and humiliation hand in hand 

Walked with them through the world 
where'er they went; 
Trampled and beaten were they as the 
sand, 
And yet unshaken as the continent. 

For in the background figures vague and 
vast 
Of patriarchs and of prophets rose sub- 
lime, 
And all the great traditions of the Past 
They saw reflected in the coming time. 

And thus forever with reverted look 

The mystic volume of the world they 
read, 

Spelling it backward, like a Hebrew book, 
Till life became a Legend of the Dead. 

But ah ! what once has been shall be no 
more ! 
The groaning earth in travail and in 
pain 



Brings forth its races, but does not re* 
store, 
And the dead nations never rise again. 



OLIVER BASSELIN 

In the Valley of the Vire 

Still is seen an ancient mill, 
With its gables quaint and queer, 
And beneath the window-sill, 
On the stone, 
These words alone: 
" Oliver Basselin lived here." 

Far above it, on the steep, 

Ruined stands the old Chateau; 
Nothing but the donjon-keep 
Left for shelter or for show. 
Its vacant eyes 
Stare at the skies, 
Stare at the valley green and deep. 

Once a convent, old and brown, 

Looked, but ah ! it looks no more, 
From the neighboring hillside down 
On the rushing and the roar 
Of the stream 
Whose sunny gleam 
Cheers the little Norman town. 

In that darksome mill of stone, 
To the water's dash and din, 
Careless, humble, and unknown, 
Sang the poet Basselin 
Songs that fill 
That ancient mill 
With a splendor of its own. 

Never feeling of unrest 

Broke the pleasant dream he dreamed; 
Only made to be his nest, 

All the lovely valley seemed; 
No desire 
Of soaring higher 
Stirred or fluttered in his breast. 

True, his songs were not divine; 

Were not songs of that high art, 
Which, as winds do in the pine, 
Find an answer in each heart; 
But the mirth 
Of this green earth 
Laughed and revelled in his line. 






VICTOR GALBRAITH 



*93 



from the alehouse and the inn, 


Forth he came, with a martial tread; 


Opening on the narrow street, 


Firm was his step, erect his head; 


Came the loud, convivial din, 


Victor Galbraith, 


Singing an applause of feet, 


He who so well the bugle played, 


The laughing lays 


Could not mistake the words it said: 


That in those days 


" Come forth to thy death, 


Sang the poet Basselin. 


Victor Galbraith ! " 


In the castle, cased in steel, 


He looked at the earth, he looked at the 


Knights, who fought at Agincourt, 


sky, 


Watched and waited, spur on heel; 


He looked at the files of musketry, 


But the poet sang for sport 


Victor Galbraith ! 


Songs that rang 


And he said, with a steady voice and eye. 


Another clang, 


" Take good aim ; I am ready to die ! " 


Songs that lowlier hearts could feel. 


Thus challenges death 




Victor Galbraith. 


In the convent, clad in gray, 




Sat the monks in lonely cells, 


Twelve fiery tongues flashed straight and 


Paced the cloisters, knelt to pray, 


red, 


And the poet heard their bells; 


Six leaden balls on their errand sped; 


But his rhymes 


Victor Galbraith 


Found other chimes, 


Falls to the ground, but he is not dead: 


Nearer to the earth than they. 


His name was not stamped on those balls 




of lead, 


Gone are all the barons bold, 


And they only scath 


Gone are all the knights and squires, 


Victor Galbraith. 


Gone the abbot stern and cold, 




And the brotherhood of friars; 


Three balls are in his breast and brain, 


Not a name 


But he rises out of the dust again, 


Remains to fame, 


Victor Galbraith ! 


From those mouldering days of old ! 


The water he drinks has a bloody stain; 




" Oh kill me, and put me out of my 


But the poet's memory here 


pain ! " 


Of the landscape makes a part; 


In his agony prayeth 


Like the river, swift and clear, 


Victor Galbraith. 


Flows his song through many a heart; 




Haunting still 


Forth dart once more those tongues of 


That ancient mill 


flame, 


In the Valley of the Vire. 


And the bugler has died a death of shame, 




Victor Galbraith ! 




His soul has gone back to whence it came, 




And no one answers to the name, 


VICTOR GALBRAITH 


When the Sergeant saith, 




" Victor Galbraith ! " 


Under the walls of Monterey 




At daybreak the bugles began to play, 


Under the walls of Monterey 


Victor Galbraith ! 


By night a bugle is heard to play, 


In the mist of the morning damp and 


Victor Galbraith ! 


gray, 


Through the mist of the valley damp and 


These were the words they seemed to 


gray 


say : 


The sentinels hear the sound, and say, 


" Come forth to thy death, 


" That is the wraith 


Victor Galbraith ! " 


Of Victor Galbraith ! " 



194 



BIRDS OF PASSAGE 



MY LOST YOUTH 

Often I think of the beautiful town 

That is seated by the sea; 
Often in thought go up and down 
The pleasant streets of that dear old town, 
And my youth comes back to me. 
And a verse of a Lapland song 
Is haunting my memory still: 
" A boy's will is the wind's will, 
And the thoughts of youth are long, long 
thoughts." 

I can see the shadowy lines of its trees, 

And catch, in sudden gleams, 
The sheen of the far-surrounding seas, 
And islands that were the Hesperides 
Of all my boyish dreams. 

And the burden of that old song, 
It murmurs and whispers still: 
" A boy's will is the wind's will, 
And the thoughts of youth are long, long 
thoughts." 

I remember the black wharves and the 
slips, 
And the sea-tides tossing free; 
And Spanish sailors with bearded lips, 
And the beauty and mystery of the ships, 
And the magic of the sea. 

And the voice of that wayward song 
Is singing and saying still: 
" A boy's will is the wind's will, 
And the thoughts of youth are long, long 
thoughts." 

I remember the bulwarks by the shore, 

And the fort upon the hill; 
The sunrise gun, with its hollow roar, 
The drum-beat repeated o'er and o'er, 
And the bugle wild and shrill. 
And the music of that old song 
Throbs in my memory still: 
" A boy's will is the wind's will, 
And the thoughts of youth are long, long 
thoughts." 

I remember the sea-fight far away, 
How it thundered o'er the tide ! 
And the dead captains, as they lay 
In their graves, o'erlooking the tranquil 
bay 
Where they in battle died. 



And the sound of that mournful song 
Goes through me with a thrill: 
" A boy's will is the wind's will, 
And the thoughts of youth are long, long 

thoughts." 

I can see the breezy dome of groves, 
The shadows of Deering's Woods; 
And the friendships old and the early loves 
Come back with a Sabbath sound, as of 
doves 
In quiet neighborhoods. 

And the verse of that sweet old song, 
It flutters and murmurs still: 
" A boy's will is the wind's will, 
And the thoughts of youth are long, long 
thoughts." 

I remember the gleams and glooni3 that 
dart 
Across the school-boy's brain; 
The song and the silence in the heart, 
That in part are prophecies, and in part 
Are longings wild and vain. 

And the voice of that fitful song 
Sings on, and is never still: 
" A boy's will is the wind's will, 
And the thoughts of youth are long, long 
thoughts." 

There are things of which I may not 
speak; 
There are dreams that cannot die; 
There are thoughts that make the strong 

heart weak, 
And bring a pallor into the cheek, 
And a mist before the eye. 

And the words of that fatal song 
Come over me like a chill: 
" A boy's will is the wind's will, 
And the thoughts of youth are long, long 
thoughts." 

Strange to me now are the forms I meet 

When I visit the dear old town; 
But the native air is pure and sweet, 
And the trees that o'ershadow each well 
known street, 
As they balance up and down, 
Are singing the beautiful song, 
Are sighing and whispering still: 
"A boy's will is the wind's will, 
And the thoughts of youth are long, long 
thoughts." 



THE GOLDEN MILE-STONE 



*95 



A.nd Deering's Woods are fresh and fair, 


As the bucket mounts apace, 


And with joy that is almost pain 


With it mounts her own fair face, 


My heart goes back to wander there, 


As at some magician's spell. 


And among the dreams of the days that 




were, 


Then an old man in a tower, 


I find my lost youth again. 


Ringing loud the noontide hour, 


And the strange and beautiful song, 


While the rope coils round and round 


The groves are repeating it still: 


Like a serpent at his feet, 


" A boy's will is the wind's will, 


And again, in swift retreat, 


And the thoughts of youth are long, long 


Nearly lifts him from the ground. 


thoughts." 






Then within a prison-yard, 




Faces fixed, and stern, and hard, 




Laughter and indecent mirth; 


THE ROPEWALK 


Ah ! it is the gallows-tree ! 




Breath of Christian charity, 


In that building, long and low, 


Blow, and sweep it from the earth! 


With its windows all a-row, 




Like the port-holes of a hulk, 


Then a school-boy, with his kite 


Human spiders spin and spin, 


Gleaming in a sky of light, 


Backward down their threads so thin 


And an eager, upward look; 


Dropping, each a hempen bulk. 


Steeds pursued through lane and field; 




Fowlers with their snares concealed; 


At the end, an open door; 


And an angler by a brook. 


Squares of sunshine on the floor 




Light the long and dusky lane; 


Ships rejoicing in the breeze, 


And the whirring of a wheel, 


Wrecks that float o'er unknown seas, 


Dull and drowsy, makes me feel 


Anchors dragged through faithless 


All its spokes are in my brain. 


sand ; 




Sea-fog drifting overhead, 


As the spinners to the end 


And, with lessening line and lead, 


Downward go and reascend, 


Sailors feeling for the land. 


Gleam the long threads in the sun; 




While within this brain of mine 


All these scenes do I behold, 


Cobwebs brighter and more fine 


These, and many left untold, 


By the busy wheel are spun. 


In that building long and low; 




While the wheel goes round and round. 


Two fair maidens in a swing, 


With a drowsy, dreamy sound, 


Like white doves upon the wing, 


And the spinners backward go. 


First before my vision pass; 




Laughing, as their gentle hands 




Closely clasp the twisted strands, 


THE GOLDEN MILE-STONE 


At their shadow on the grass. 






Leafless are the trees ; their purple 


Then a booth of mountebanks, 


branches 


With its smell of tan and planks, 


Spread themselves abroad, like reefs of 


And a girl poised high in air 


coral, 


On a cord, in spangled dress, 


Rising silent 


With a faded loveliness, 


In the Red Sea of the winter sunset. 


And a weary look of care. 






From the hundred chimneys of the village, 


Then a homestead among farms, 


Like the Afreet in the Arabian story, 


And a woman with bare arms 


Smoky columns 


Drawing water from a well; 


Tower aloft into the air of amber. 



196 



BIRDS OF PASSAGE 



At the window winks the flickering fire- 
light; , 

Here and there the lamps of evening glim- 
mer, 

Social watch-fires 

Answering one another through the dark- 
ness. 

On the hearth the lighted logs are glowing, 
And like Ariel in the cloven pine-tree 

For its freedom 
Groans and sighs the air imprisoned in 
them. 

By the fireside there are old men seated, 
Seeing ruined cities in the ashes, 

Asking sadly 
Of the Past what it can ne'er restore them. 

By the fireside there are youthful dreamers, 
Building castles fair, with stately stairways, 

Asking blindly 
Of the Future what it cannot give them. 

By the fireside tragedies are acted 

In whose scenes appear two actors only, 

Wife and husband, 
And above them God the sole spectator. 

By the fireside there are peace and comfort, 
Wives and children, with fair, thoughtful 
faces, 

Waiting, watching 
For a well-known footstep in the passage. 

Each man's chimney is his Golden Mile- 
Stone ; 

Is the central point, from which he mea- 
sures 

Every distance 

Through the gateways of the world around 
him. 

In his farthest wanderings still he sees it; 
Hears the talking flame, the answering 

night- wind, 

As he heard them 
When he sat with those who were, but are 

not. 

Happy he whom neither wealth nor fashion, 
Nor the march of the encroaching city, 

Drives an exile 
From the hearth of his ancestral home- 
stead. 



We may build more splendid habitations, 
Fill our rooms with paintings and with 
sculptures, 

But we cannot 
Buy with gold the old associations ! 



CATAWBA WINE 

This song of mine 

Is a Song of the Vine, 
To be sung by the glowing embers 

Of wayside inns, 

When the rain begins 
To darken the drear Novembers. 

It is not a song 

Of the Scuppernong, 
From warm Carolinian valleys, 

Nor the Isabel 

And the Muscadel 
That bask in our garden alleys. 

Nor the red Mustang, 

Whose clusters hang 
O'er the waves of the Colorado, 

And the fiery flood 

Of whose purple blood 
Has a dash of Spanish bravado. 

For richest and best 

Is the wine of the West, 
That grows by the Beautiful River ; 

Whose sweet perfume 

Fills all the room 
With a benison on the giver. 

And as hollow trees 

Are the haunts of bees, 
Forever going and coming; 

So this crystal hive 

Is all alive 
With a swarming and buzzing and hum 



Very good in its way 

Is the Verzenay, 
Or the Sillery soft and creamy; 

But Catawba wine 

Has a taste more divine, 
More dulcet, delicious, and dreamy. 

There grows no vine 
By the haunted Rhine, 
By Danube or Guadalquivir, 



THE DISCOVERER OF THE NORTH CAPE 



197 



Nor on island or cape, 


The wounded from the battle-plain, 


That bears such a grape 


In dreary hospitals of pain, 


As grows by the Beautiful River. 


The cheerless corridors, 




The cold and stony floors. 


Drugged is their juice 




For foreign use, 


Lo ! in that house of misery 


When shipped o'er the reeling Atlantic, 


A lady with a lamp I see 


To rack our brains 


Pass through the glimmering gloom, 


With the fever pains, 


And flit from room to room. 


That have driven the Old World frantic. 






And slow, as in a dream of bliss, 


To the sewers and sinks 


The speechless sufferer turns to kiss 


With all such drinks, 


Her shadow, as it falls 


And after them tumble the mixer; 


Upon the darkening walls. 


For a poison malign 




Is such Borgia wine, 


As if a door in heaven should be 


Or at best but a Devil's Elixir. 


Opened and then closed suddenly, 




The vision came and went, 


While pure as a spring 


The light shone and was spent. 


Is the wine I sing, 




And to praise it, one needs but name it; 


On England's annals, through the long 


For Catawba wine 


Hereafter of her speech and song, 


Has need of no sign, 


That light its rays shall cast 


No tavern-bush to proclaim it. 


From portals of the past. 


And this Song of the Vine, 


A Lady with a Lamp shall stand 


This greeting of mine, 


In the great history of the land, 


The winds and the birds shall deliver 


A noble type of good, 


To the Queen of the West, 


Heroic womanhood. 


In her garlands dressed, 




On the banks of the Beautiful River. 


Nor even shall be wanting here 




The palm, the lily, and the spear, 




The symbols that of yore 


SANTA FILOMENA 


Saint Filomena bore. 


Whene'er a noble deed is wrought, 




Whene'er is spoken a noble thought, 
Our hearts, in glad surprise, 
To higher levels rise. 


THE DISCOVERER OF THE 


NORTH CAPE 


The tidal wave of deeper souls 


A LEAF FROM KING ALFRED'S 


Into our inmost being rolls, 


OROSIUS 


And lifts us unawares 




Out of all meaner cares. 


Othere, the old sea-captain, 




Who dwelt in Helgoland, 


Honor to those whose words or deeds 


To King Alfred, the Lover of Truth, 


Thus help us in our daily needs, 


Brought a snow-white walrus-tooth, 


And by their overflow 


Which he held in his brown right hand. 


Raise us from what is low! 






His figure was tall and stately, 


Thus thought I, as by night I read 


Like a boy's his eye appeared; 


Of the great army of the dead, 


His hair was yellow as hay, 


The trenches cold and damp, 


But threads of a silvery gray 


The starved and frozen camp, — 


Gleamed in his tawny beard. 



*98 



BIRDS OF PASSAGE 



Hearty and hale was Othere, 
His cheek had the color of oak; 

With a kind of a laugh in his speech, 

Like the sea-tide on a beach, 
As unto the King he spoke. 

And Alfred, King of the Saxons, 

Had a book upon his knees, 
And wrote down the wondrous tale 
Of him who was first to sail 

Into the Arctic seas. 

11 So far I live to the northward, 

No man lives north of me; 
To the east are wild mountain-chains, 
And beyond them meres and plains; 

To the westward all is sea. 

" So far I live to the northward, 
From the harbor of Skeringes-hale, 

If you only sailed by day, 

With a fair wind all the way, 

More than a month would you sail. 

" I own six hundred reindeer, 

With sheep and swine beside; 
I have tribute from the Finns, 
Whalebone and reindeer-skins, 
And ropes of walrus-bide. 

" I ploughed the land with horses, 
But my heart was ill at ease, 

For the old seafaring men 

Came to me now and then, 

With their sagas of the seas; — 

" Of Iceland and of Greenland, 

And the stormy Hebrides, 
And the undiscovered deep; — 
Oh I could not eat nor sleep 

For thinking of those seas. 

" To the northward stretched the desert, 

How far I fain would know; 
So at last I sallied forth, 
And three days sailed due north, 
As far as the whale-ships go. 

" To the west of me was the ocean, 
To the right the desolate shore, 

But I did not slacken sail 

For the walrus or the whale, 
Till after three days more. 



" The days grew longer and longer, 

Till they became as one, 
And northward through the haze 
1 saw the sullen blaze 

Of the red midnight sun. 

" And then uprose before me, 

Upon the water's edge, 
The huge and haggard shape 
Of that unknown North Cape, 

Whose form is like a wedge. 

" The sea was rough and stormy, 
The tempest howled and wailed, 

And the sea-fog, like a ghost, 

Haunted that dreary coast, 
But onward still I sailed. 

" Four days I steered to eastward, 

Four clays without a night: 
Round in a fiery ring 
Went the great sun, O King, 
With red and lurid light." 

Here Alfred, King of the Saxons, 

Ceased writing for a while; 
And raised his eyes from his book, 
With a strange and puzzled look, 
And an incredulous smile. 

But Othere, the old sea-captain, 
He neither paused nor stirred, 

Till the King listened, and then 

Once more took up his pen, 
And wrote down every word. 

" And now the land," said Othere, 
" Bent southward suddenly, 

And I followed the curving shore 

And ever southward bore 
Into a nameless sea. 

" And there we hunted the walrus, 
The narwhale, and the seal; 

Ha ! 't was a noble game ! 

And like the lightning's flame 
Flew our harpoons of steel. 

" There were six of us all together, 

Norsemen of Helgoland; 
In two days and no more 
We killed of them threescore, 

And dragged them to the strand ! n 



CHILDREN 



199 



Here Alfred the Truth-teller 


In the beautiful Fays de Vaud, 


Suddenly closed his book, 


A child in its cradle lay. 


And lifted his blue eyes, 




With doubt and strange surmise 


And Nature, the old nurse, took 


Depicted in their look. 


The child upon her knee, 




Sayiug: " Here is a story-book 


And Othere the old sea-captain 


Thy Father has written for thee." 


Stared at him wild and weird, 




Then smiled, till his shining teeth 


" Come, wander with me," she said, 


Gleamed white from underneath 


" Into regions yet untrod; 


His tawny, quivering beard. 


And read what is still unread 




In the manuscripts of God." 


And to the King of the Saxons, 




In witness of the truth, 


And he wandered away and away 


Raising his noble head, 


With Nature, the dear old nurse, 


He stretched his brown hand, and said, 


Who sang to him night and day 


" Behold this walrus-tooth ! " 


The rhymes of the universe. 




And whenever the way seemed long, 


DAYBREAK 


Or his heart began to fail, 




She would sing a more wonderful song, 


A wind came up out of the sea, 


Or tell a more marvellous tale. 


And said, " mists, make room for me." 






So she keeps him still a child, 


It hailed the ships, and cried, " Sail on, 


And will not let him go, 


Ye mariners, the night is gone." 


Though at times his heart beats wild 




For the beautiful Pays de Vaud ; 


And hurried landward far away, 




Crying, " Awake 1 it is the day." 


Though at times he hears in his dreams 




The Ranz des Vaches of old, 


It said unto the forest, " Shout ! 


And the rush of mountain streams 


Hang all your leafy banners out ! " 


From glaciers clear and cold ; 


It touched the wood-bird's folded wing, 


And the mother at home says, " Hark \ 


And said, " bird, awake and sing." 


For his voice I listen and yearn ; 




It is growing late and dark, 


And o'er the farms, " chanticleer, 


And my boy does not return ! " 


Your clarion blow; the day is near." 




It whispered to the fields of corn, 




" Bow down, and hail the coming morn." 


CHILDREN 


It shouted through the belfry-tower, 


Come to me, ye children ! 


"Awake, bell ! proclaim the hour." 


For I hear you at your play, 




And the questions that perplexed me 


It crossed the churchyard with a sigh, 


Have vanished quite away. 


And said, " Not yet ! in quiet lie." 






Ye open the eastern windows, 




That look towards the sun, 


THE FIFTIETH BIRTHDAY OF 


Where thoughts are singing swallows 


AGASSIZ 


And the brooks of morning run. 


May 28, 1857 


In your hearts are the birds and the sun- 


It was fifty years ago 


shine, 


In the pleasant month of May, 


In your thoughts the brooklet's flow, 



200 



BIRDS OF PASSAGE 



But in mine is the wind of Autumn 
And the first fall of the snow. 

Ah ! what would the world be to us 
If the children were no more ? 

We should dread the desert behind us 
Worse than the dark before. 

What the leaves are to the forest, 

With light and air for food, 
Ere their sweet and tender juices 

Have been hardened into wood, — 

That to the world are children; 

Through them it feels the glow 
Of a brighter and sunnier climate 

Than reaches the trunks below. 

Come to me, O ye children ! 

And whisper in my ear 
What the birds and the winds are sing- 
ing 

In your sunny atmosphere. 

For what are all our contrivings, 
And the wisdom of our books, 

When compared with your caresses, 
And the gladness of your looks ? 

Ye are better than all the ballads 
That ever were sung or said; 

For ye are living poems, 
And all the rest are dead. 



SANDALPHON 

Have you read in the Talmud of old, 
In the Legends the Rabbins have told 

Of the limitless realms of the air, 
Have you read it, — the marvellous story 
Of Sandalphon, the Angel of Glory, 

Sandalphon, the Angel of Prayer ? 

How, erect, at the outermost gates 
Of the City Celestial he waits, 

With his feet on the ladder of light, 
That, crowded with angels unnumbered, 
By Jacob was seen, as he slumbered 

Alone in the desert at night ? 

The Angels of Wind and of Fire 
Chant only one hymn, and expire 
With the song's irresistible stress; 



Expire in their rapture and wonder, 

As harp-strings are broken asunder 

By music they throb to express. 

But serene in the rapturous throng, 
Unmoved by the rush of the song, 

With eyes unimpassioned and slow, 
Among the dead angels, the deathless 
Sandalphon stands listening breathless 

To sounds that ascend from below; — 

From the spirits on earth that adore, 
From the souls that entreat and implore 

In the fervor and passion of prayer; 
From the hearts that are broken with losses, 
And weary with dragging the crosses 

Too heavy for mortals to bear. 

And he gathers the prayers as he stands, 
And they change into flowers in his hands, 

Into garlands of purple and red; 
And beneath the great arch of the portal, 
Through the streets of the City Immortal 

Is wafted the fragrance they shed. 

It is but a legend, I know, — 
A fable, a phantom, a show, 

Of the ancient Rabbinical lore; 
Yet the old mediaeval tradition, 
The beautiful, strange superstition, 

But haunts me and holds me the more. 

When I look from my window at night, 
And the welkin above is all white, 

All throbbing and panting with stars, 
Among them majestic is standing 
Sandalphon the angel, expanding 

His pinions in nebulous bars. 

And the legend, I feel, is a part 

Of the hunger and thirst of the heart, 

The frenzy and fire of the brain, 
That grasps at the fruitage forbidden. 
The golden pomegranates of Eden, 

To quiet its fever and pain. 



FLIGHT THE SECOND 
THE CHILDREN'S HOUR 



Between the dark and the daylight, 
When the night is beginning to lower, 

Comes a pause in the day's occupations, 
That is known as the Children's Hour, 






THE CUMBERLAND 



201 



I hear in the chamber above me 


The crags are piled on his breast, 


The patter of little feet, 


The earth is heaped on his head; 


The sound of a door that is opened, 


But the groans of his wild unrest, 


And voices soft and sweet. 


Though smothered and half suppressed. 




Are heard, and he is not dead. 


From my study I see in the lamplight, 




Descending the broad hall stair, 


And the nations far away 


Grave Alice, and laughing Allegra, 


Are watching with eager eyes; 


And Edith with golden hair. 


They talk together and say, 




" To-morrow, perhaps to-day, 


A whisper, and then a silence: 


Enceladus will arise ! " 


Yet I know by their merry eyes 




They are plotting and planning together 


And the old gods, the austere 


To take me by surprise. 


Oppressors in their strength, 




Stand aghast and white with fear 


A sudden rush from the stairway, 


At the ominous sounds they hear, 


A sudden raid from the hall ! 


And tremble, and mutter, " At length! " 


By three doors left unguarded 




They enter my castle wall ! 


Ah me ! for the land that is sown 




With the harvest of despair ! 


They climb up into my turret 


Where the burning cinders, blown 


O'er the arms and back of my chair; 


From the lips of the overthrown 


If I try to escape, they surround me; 


Enceladus, fill the air; 


They seem to be everywhere. 






Where ashes are heaped in drifts 


They almost devour me with kisses, 


Over vineyard and field and town, 


Their arms about me entwine, 


Whenever he starts and lifts 


Till I think of the Bishop of Bingen 


His head through the blackened rifts 


In his Mouse-Tower on the Rhine ! 


Of the crags that keep him down. 


Do you think, blue-eyed banditti, 


See, see ! the red light shines ! 


Because you have scaled the wall, 


'T is the glare of his awful eyes ! 


Such an old mustache as I am 


And the storm-wind shouts through, the 


Is not a match for you all ! 


pines 




Of Alps and of Apennines, 


I have you fast in my fortress, 


"Enceladus, arise ! " 


And will not let you depart, 




But put you down into the dungeon 




In the round-tower of my heart. 


THE CUMBERLAND 


And there will I keep you forever, 


At anchor in Hampton Roads we lay, 


Yes, forever and a day, 


On board of the Cumberland, sloop-of * 


Till the walls shall crumble to ruin, 


war; 


And moulder in dust away ! 


And at times from the fortress across the 
bay 
The alarum of drums swept past, 




ENCELADUS 


Or a bugle blast 




From the camp on the shore. 


Under Mount Etna he lies, 




It is slumber, it is not death; 


Then far away to the south uprose 


For he struggles at times to arise, 


A little feather of snow-white smoke, 


And above him the lurid skies 


And we knew that the iron ship of ouf 


Are hot with his fiery breath. 


foes 



202 



BIRDS OF PASSAGE 



Was steadily steering its course 
To try the force 
Of our ribs of oak. 

Down upon us heavily runs, 

Silent and sullen, the floating fort; 
Then comes a puff of smoke from her 
guns, 
And leaps the terrible death, 
With fiery breath, 
From each open port. 

*Ve are not idle, but send her straight 

Defiance back in a full broadside ! 
As hail rebounds from a roof of slate, 
Rebounds our heavier hail 
From each iron scale 
Of the monster's hide. 

" Strike your flag ! " the rebel cries, 

In his arrogant old plantation strain. 
" Never ! " our gallant Morris replies; 
" It is better to sink than to yield ! " 
And the whole air pealed 
With the cheers of our men. 

Then, like a kraken huge and black, 

She crushed our ribs in her iron grasp ! 
Down went the Cumberland all a wrack, 
With a sudden shudder of death, 
And the cannon's breath 
For her dying gasp. 

Next morn, as the sun rose over the bay, 

Still floated our flag at the mainmast head. 
Lord, how beautiful was Thy day ! 
Every waft of the air 
Was a whisper of prayer, 
Or a dirge for the dead. 

Ho ! brave hearts that went down in the 
seas ! 
Ye are at peace in the troubled stream; 
Ho ! brave land ! with hearts like these, 
Thy flag, that is rent in twain, 
Shall be one again, 
And without a seam ! 



SNOW-FLAKES 

Out of the bosom of the Air, 

Out of the cloud-folds of her garments 
shaken, 



Over the woodlands brown and bare, 
Over the harvest-fields forsaken, 
Silent, and soft, and slow 
Descends the snow. 

Even as our cloudy fancies take 

Suddenly shape in some divine expres- 
sion, 
Even as the troubled heart doth make 
In the white countenance confession, 
The troubled sky reveals 
The grief it feels. 

This is the poem of the air, 

Slowly in silent syllables recorded j 
This is the secret of despair, 

Long in its cloudy bosom hoarded, 
Now whispered and revealed 
To wood and field. 



A DAY OF SUNSHINE 

gift of God ! O perfect day: 
Whereon shall no man work, but playj 
Whereon it is enough for me, 

Not to be doing, but to be ! 

Through every fibre of my brain, 
Through every nerve, through ev*sry 
vein, 

1 feel the electric thrill, the touch 
Of life, that seems almost too much. 

I hear the wind among the trees 
Playing celestial symphonies; 
I see the branches downward bent, 
Like keys of some great instrument. 

And over me unrolls on high 
The splendid scenery of the sky, 
Where through a sapphire sea the sun 
Sails like a golden galleon, 

Towards yonder cloud-land in the West, 
Towards yonder Islands of the Blest, 
Whose steep sierra far uplifts 
Its craggy summits white with drifts. 

Blow, winds! and waft through all the 

rooms 
The snow-flakes of the cherry-blooms ! 
Blow, winds! and bend within my reach 
The fiery blossoms of the peach! 



WEARINESS 



203 



O Life and Love ! O happy throng 
Of thoughts, whose only speech is song! 
O heart of man ! canst thou not be 
Blithe as the air is, and as free ? 



SOMETHING LEFT UNDONE 

Labor with what zeal we will, 
Something still remains undone, 

Something uncompleted still 
Waits the rising of the sun. 

By the bedside, on the stair, 

At the threshold, near the gates, 

With its menace or its prayer, 
Like a mendicant it waits; 

Waits, and will not go away; 

Waits, and will not be gainsaid; 
By the cares of yesterday 

Each to-day is heavier made; 

Till at length the burden seems 

Greater than our strength can bear, 

Heavy as the weight of dreams, 
Pressing on us everywhere. 

And we stand from day to day, 
Like the dwarfs of times gone by, 

Who, as Northern legends say, 
On their shoulders held the sky. 



WEARINESS 

O little feet ! that such long years 
Must wander on through hopes and fears, 

Must ache and bleed beneath your 
load ; 
I, nearer to the wayside inn 
Where toil shall cease and rest begin, 

Am weary, thinking of your road ! 

O little hands ! that, weak or strong, 
Have still to serve or rule so long, 

Have still so long to give or ask; 
I, who so much with book and pen 
Have toiled among my fellow-men, 

Am weary, thinking of your task. 

O little hearts ! that throb and beat 
With such impatient, feverish heat, 

Such limitless and strong desires; 
Mine, that so long has glowed and burned, 
With passions into ashes turned, 

Now covers and conceals its fires. 

O little souls ! as pure and white 
And crystalline as rays of light 

Direct from heaven, their source divine; 
Refracted through the mist of years, 
How red my setting sun appears, , 

How lurid looks this soul of mine ! 



TALES OF A WAYSIDE INN 



The plan for a group of stories under the fiction of a 
company of story-tellers at an inn appears to have vis- 
aed Mr. Longfellow after he had made some progress 
vith the separate tales. 

The book as originally planned consisted of the first 
jart only, and was published November 25, 1863, in an 
3dition of fifteen thousand copies, — an indication of 
the confidence which the publishers had in the poet's 
popularity. 

The disguises of characters were so slight that read- 
ers easily recognized most of them at once, and Mr. 
Longfellow himself never made any mystery of their 
identity. Just after the publication of the volume he 
wrote to a correspondent in England : — 

" All the characters are real. The musician is Ole 
Bull ; the Spanish Jew, Israel Edrehi, whom I have seen 
as I have painted him, etc., etc." 



It is easy to fill up the etc. of Mr. Longfellow's cata. 
logue. The poet is T. W. Parsons, the translator of 
Dante; the Sicilian, Luigi Monti, whose name occurs 
often in Mr. Longfellow's Life as a familiar friend ; the 
theologian, Professor Daniel Treadwell, a physicist of 
genius who had also a turn for theology ; the student, 
Henry Ware Wales, a scholar of promise who had trav- 
elled much, who died early, and whose tastes appeared 
in the collection of books which he left to the library 
of Harvard College. This group was collected by the 
poet's fancy ; in point of fact three of them, Parsons, 
Monti, and Treadwell, were wont to spend their sum- 
mer months at the inn. 

The Second Day was published in 1872 ; The Third 
Part formed the principal portion of Aftermath in 1873, 
and subsequently the three parts were brought to- 
gether, into a complete volume. 



TALES OF A WAYSIDE INN 

PART FIRST 

PRELUDE 

THE WAYSIDE INN 



One Autumn night, in Sudbury town, 
Across the meadows bare and brown, 
The windows of the wayside inn 
Gleamed red with fire-light through the 

leaves 
Of woodbine, hanging from the eaves 
Their crimson curtains rent and thin. 



As ancient is this hostelry 

As any in the land may be, 

Built in the old Colonial day, 

When men lived in a grander way, 

With ampler hospitality ; 

A kind of old Hobgoblin Hall, 

Now somewhat fallen to decay, 



With weather-stains upon the wall, 
And stairways worn, and crazy doors, 
And creaking and uneven floors, 
And chimneys huge, and tiled and 
tall. 



A region of repose it seems, 
A place of slumber and of dreams, 
Remote among the wooded hills ! 
For there no noisy railway speeds, 
Its torch-race scattering smoke and 

gleeds; 
But noon and night, the panting teams 
Stop under the great oaks, that throw 
Tangles of light and shade below, 
On roofs and doors and window-sills. 
Across the road the barns display 
Their lines of stalls, their mows of 

hay, 
Through the wide doors the breezes 

blow, 
The wattled cocks strut to and fro, 
And, half effaced by rain and shine, 
The Red Horse prances on the sign. 
Round this old-fashioned, quaint 

abode 
Deep silence reigned, save when a 

gust 



PRELUDE 



20 f 



§Vent rushing down the county road, 
And skeletons of leaves, and dust, 
A moment quickened by its breath, 
Shuddered and danced their dance of 

death, 
And through the ancient oaks o'erhead 
Mysterious voices moaned and fled. 

But from the parlor of the inn 

A pleasant murmur smote the ear, 

Like water rushing through a weir : 

Oft interrupted by the din 

Of laughter and of loud applause, 

And, in each intervening pause, 

The music of a violin. 

The fire-light, shedding over all 

The splendor of its ruddy glow, 

Filled the whole parlor large and low ; / 

It gleamed on wainscot and on wall, 

It touched with more than wonted grace 

Fair Princess Mary's pictured face ; 

It bronzed the rafters overhead, 

On the old spinet's ivory keys 

It played inaudible melodies, 

It crowned the sombre clock with flame, 

The hands, the hours, the maker's name, 

And painted with a livelier red 

The Landlord's coat-of-arms again ; 

And, flashing on the window-pane, 

Emblazoned with its light and shade 

The jovial rhymes, that still remain, 

Writ near a century ago, 

By the great Major Molineaux, 

Whom Hawthorne has immortal made. 

Before the blazing fire of wood 

Erect the rapt musician stood ; 

And ever and anon he bent 

His head upon his instrument, 

And seemed to listen, till he caught 

Confessions of its secret thought, — ■ 

The joy, the triumph, the lament, 

The exultation and the pain ; 

Then, by the magic of his art, 

He soothed the throbbings of its heart, 

And lulled it into peace again. 

Around the fireside at their ease 
There sat a group of friends, entranced 
With the delicious melodies ; 
Who from the far-off noisy town 
Had to the wayside inn come down, 
To rest beneath its old oak trees. 
The fire-light on their faces glanced, 
Their shadows on the wainscot danced 



And, though of different lands and speech, 
Each had his tale to tell, and each 
Was anxious to be pleased and please. 
And while the sweet musician plays, 
Let me in outline sketch them all, 
Perchance uncouthly as the blaze 
With its uncertain touch portrays 
Their shadowy semblance on the wall. 

But first the Landlord will I trace ; 

Grave in his aspect and attire ; 

A man of ancient pedigree, 

A Justice of the Peace was he, 

Known in all Sudbury as "The Squire.** 

Proud was he of his name and race, 

Of old Sir William and Sir Hugh, 

And in the parlor, full in view, 

His coat-of-arms, well framed and glazed^ 

Upon the wall in colors blazed ; 

He beareth gules upon his shield, 

A chevron argent in the field, 

With three wolf's-heads, and for the crest 

A Wyvern part-per-pale addressed 

Upon a helmet barred ; below 

The scroll reads, " By the name of Howe." 

And over this, no longer bright, 

Though glimmering with a latent light, 

Was hung the sword his graudsire bore 

In the rebellious days of yore, 

Down there at Concord in the fight. 

A youth was there, of quiet ways, 
A Student of old books and days, 
To whom all tongues and lands were 

known, 
And yet a lover of his own ; 
With many a social virtue graced, 
And yet a friend of solitude ; 
A man of such a genial mood 
The heart of all things he embraced, 
And yet of such fastidious taste, 
He never found the best too good. 
Books were his passion and delight, 
And in his upper room at home 
Stood many a rare and sumptuous tome, 
In vellum bound, with gold bedight, 
Great volumes garmented in white, 
Recalling Florence, Pisa, Rome. 
He loved the twilight that surrounds 
The border-land of old romance ; 
Where glitter hauberk, helm, and lance, 
And banner waves, and trumpet sounds, 
And ladies ride with hawk on wrist, 
And mighty warriors sweep along, 
Magnified bv the purple mi**- 



206 



TALES OF A WAYSIDE INN 



The dusk of centuries and of song. 
The chronicles of Charlemagne, 
Of Merlin and the Mort d'Arthure, 
Mingled together in his brain 
With tales of Flores and Blanchefleur, 
Sir Ferumbras, Sir Eglamour, 
Sir Launcelot, Sir Morgadour, 
Sir Guy, Sir Bevis, Sir Gawain. 

A young Sicilian, too, was there ; 

lu sight of Etna born and bred, 

Some breath of its volcanic air 

Was glowing in his heart and brain, 

And, being rebellious to his liege, 

After Palermo's fatal siege, 

Across the western seas he fled, 

In good King Bomba's happy reign. 

His face was like a summer night, 

All flooded with a dusky light ; 

His hands were small ; his teeth shone 

white 
As sea-shells, when he smiled or spoke ; 
His sinews supple and strong as oak ; 
Clean shaven was he as a priest, 
Who at the mass on Sunday sings, 
Save that upon his upper lip 
His beard, a good palm's length at least, 
Level and pointed at the tip, 
Shot sideways, like a swallow's wings. 
The poets read he o'er and o'er, 
And most of all the Immortal Four 
Of Italy ; and next to those, 
The story-telling bard of prose, 
Who wrote the joyous Tuscan tales 
Of the Decameron, that make 
Fiesole's green hills and vales 
Remembered for Boccaccio's sake. 
Much too of music was his thought ; 
The melodies and measures fraught 
With sunshine and the open air, 
Of vineyards and the singing sea 
Of his beloved Sicily ; 
And much it pleased him to peruse 
The songs of the Sicilian muse, — 
Bucolic songs by Meli sung 
In the familiar peasant tongue, 
That made men say, " Behold ! once more 
The pitying gods to earth restore 
Theocritus of Syracuse ! " 

A Spanish Jew from Alicant 

With aspect grand and grave was there ; 

Vender of silks and fabrics rare, 

And attar of rose from the Levant. 

Like an old Patriarch he appeared, 



Abraham or Isaac, or at least 

Some later Prophet or High-Priest ; 

With lustrous eyes, and olive skin, 

And, wildly tossed from cheeks and chin, 

The tumbling cataract of his beard. 

His garments breathed a spicy scent 

Of cinnamon and sandal blent, 

Like the soft aromatic gales 

That meet the mariner, who sails 

Through the Moluccas, and the seas 

That wash the shores of Celebes. 

All stories that recorded are 

By Pierre Alphonse he knew by heart, 

And it was rumored he could say 

The Parables of Sandabar, 

And all the Fables of Pilpay, 

Or if not all, the greater part ! 

Well versed was he in Hebrew books, 

Talmud and Targum, and the lore 

Of Kabala ; and evermore 

There was a mystery in his looks ; 

His eyes seemed gazing far away, 

As if in vision or in trance 

He heard the solemn sackbut play, 

And saw the Jewish maidens dance, 

A Theologian, from the school 

Of Cambridge on the Charles, was there \ 

Skilful alike with tongue and pen, 

He preached to all men everywhere 

The Gospel of the Golden Rule, 

The New Commandment given to men, 

Thinking the deed, and not the creed, 

Would help us in our utmost need. 

With reverent feet the earth he trod, 

Nor banished nature from his plan, 

But studied still with deep research 

To build the Universal Church, 

Lofty as is the love of God, 

And ample as the wants of man. 

A Poet, too, was there, whose verse 

Was tender, musical, and terse ; 

The inspiration, the delight, 

The gleam, the glory, the swift flight 

Of thoughts so sudden, that they seem 

The revelations of a dream, 

All these were his ; but with them cams 

No envy of another's fame ; 

He did not find his sleep less sweet, 

For music in some neighboring street 

Nor rustling hear in every breeze 

The laurels of Miltiades. 

Honor and blessings on his head 

While living, good report when dead, 



THE LANDLORD'S TALE 



207 



Who, not too eager for renown, 
Accepts, but does not clutch, the crown ! 

Last the Musician, as he stood 

Illumined by that lire of wood ; 

Fair-haired, blue-eyed, his aspect blithe, 

His figure tall and straight and lithe, 

And every feature of his face 

Revealing his Norwegian race ; 

A radiance, streaming from within, 

Around his eyes and forehead beamed, 

The Angel with the violin, 

Painted by Raphael, he seemed. 

He lived in that ideal world 

Whose language is not speech, but song ; 

Around him evermore the throng 

Of elves and sprites their dances whirled ; 

The Stromkarl sang, the cataract hurled 

Its headlong waters from the height ; 

And mingled in the wild delight 

The scream of sea-birds in their flight, 

The rumor of the forest trees, 

The plunge of the implacable seas, 

The tumult of the wind at night, 

Voices of eld, like trumpets blowing, 

Old ballads, and wild melodies 

Through mist and darkness pouring forth, 

Like Elivagar's river flowing 

Out of the glaciers of the North. 

The instrument on which he played 

Was in Cremona's workshops made, 

By a great master of the past, 

Ere yet was lost the art divine ; 

Fashioned of maple and of pine, 

That in Tyrolean forests vast 

Had rocked and wrestled with the blast : 

Exquisite was it in design, 

Perfect in each minutest part, 

A marvel of the lutist's art ; 

And in its hollow chamber, thus, 

The maker from whose hands it came 

Had written his unrivalled name, — ■ 

" Antonius Stradivarius." 

And when he played, the atmosphere 
Was filled with magic, and the ear 
Caught echoes of that Harp of Gold, 
"Whose music had so weird a sound, 
The hunted stag forgot to bound, 
The leaping rivulet backward rolled, 
The birds came down from bush and tree, 
The dead came from beneath the sea, 
The maiden to the harper's knee ! 



The music ceased ; the applause was loud, 
The pleased musician smiled and bowed ; 
The wood-fire clapped its hands of flame, 
The shadows on the wainscot stirred, 
And from the harpsichord there came 
A ghostly murmur of acclaim, 
A sound like that sent down at night * 
By birds of passage in their flight, 
From the remotest distance heard. 

Then silence followed ; then began 
A clamor for the Landlord's tale, — 
The story promised them of old, 
They said, but always left untold ; 
And he, although a bashful man, 
And all his courage seemed to fail, 
Finding excuse of no avail, 
Yielded ; and thus the story ran. 



THE LANDLORD'S TALE 

PAUL REVERE'S RIDE 

Listen, my children, and you shall hear 

Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere, 

On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy- 

five ; 
Hardly a man is now alive 
Who remembers that famous day and year. 

He said to his friend, "If the British 

march 
By land or sea from the town to-night, 
Hang a lantern aloft in the belfry arch 
Of the North Church tower as a signal 

. light, — 
One, if by land, and two, if by sea j 
And I on the opposite shore will be, 
Ready to ride and spread the alarm 
Through every Middlesex village and 

farm, 
For the country folk to be up and to arm." 

Then he said, " Good night ! " and with 

muffled oar 
Silently rowed to the Charlestown shore, 
Just as the moon rose over the bay, 
Where swinging wide at her moorings lay 
The Somerset, British man-of-war ; 
A phantom ship, with each mast and spar 
Across the moon like a prison bar, 
And a huge black hulk, that was magnified 
By its own reflection in the tide. 



208 



TALES OF A WAYSIDE INN 



Meanwhile, his friend, through alley and 

street, 
Wanders and watches with eager ears, 
Till in the silence around him he hears 
The muster of men at the barrack door, 
The sound of arms, and the tramp of feet, 
AncLthe measured tread of the grenadiers, 
Marching down to their boats on the shore. 

Then he climbed the tower of the Old North 

Church, 
By the wooden stairs, with stealthy tread, 
To the belfry-chamber overhead, 
And startled the pigeons from their perch 
On the sombre rafters, that round him 

made 
Masses and moving shapes of shade, — 
By the trembling ladder, steep and tall, 
To the highest window in the wall, 
Where he paused to listen and look down 
A moment on the roofs of the town, 
And the moonlight flowing over all. 

Beneath, in the churchyard, lay the dead, 

In their night-encampment on the hill, 

Wrapped in silence so deep and still 

That he could hear, like a sentinel's tread, 

The watchful night-wind, as it went 

Creeping along from tent to tent, 

And seeming to whisper, "All is well ! " 

A moment only he feels the spell 

Of the place and the hour, and the secret 

dread 
Of the lonely belfry and the dead ; 
For suddenly all his thoughts are bent 
On a shadowy something far away, 
Where the river widens to meet the bay, — 
A line of black that bends and floats 
On the rising tide, like a bridge of boats. 

Meanwhile, impatient to mount and ride, 
Booted and spurred, with a heavy stride 
On the opposite shore walked Paul Revere. 
Now he patted his horse's side, 
Now gazed at the landscape far and near, 
Then, impetuous, stamped the earth, 
And turned and tightened his saddle- 
girth ; 
But mostly he watched with eager search 
The belfry-tower of the Old North Church, 
As it rose above the graves on the hill, 
Lonely and spectral and sombre and still. 
And lo ! as he looks, on the belfry's height 
A glimmer, and then a gleam of Light ! 
He springs to the saddle, the bridle he turns, 



But lingers and gazes, till full on his sight 
A second lamp in the belfry burns ! 

A hurry of hoofs in a village street, 

A shape in the moonlight, a bulk in the 

dark, 
And beneath, from the pebbles, in passing, 

a spark 
Struck out by a steed living fearless and 

fleet: 
That was all ! And yet, through the gloom 

and the light, 
The fate of a nation was riding that night ; 
And the spark struck out by that steed, in 

his flight, 
Kindled the land into flame with its heat. 

He has left the village and mounted the 

steep, 
And beneath him, tranquil and broad and 

deep, 
Is the Mystic, meeting the ocean tides ; 
And under the alders that skirt its edge, 
Now soft on the sand, now loud on the ledge, 
Is heard the tramp of his steed as he rides. 

It was twelve by the village clock, 

When he crossed the bridge into Medford 

town. 
He heard the crowing of the cock, 
And the barking of the farmer's dog, 
And felt the damp of the river fog, 
That rises after the sun goes down. 

It was one by the village clock, 

When he galloped into Lexington. 

He saw the gilded weathercock 

Swim in the moonlight as he passed, 

And the meeting-house windows, blank and 

bare, 
Gaze at him with a spectral glare, 
As if they already stood aghast 
At the bloody work they would look upon. 

It was two by the village clock, 

When he came to the bridge in Concord 

town. 
He heard the bleating of the flock, 
And the twitter of birds among the trees, 
And felt the breath of the morning breeze 
Blowing over the meadows brown. 
And one was safe and asleep in his bed 
Who at the bridge would be first to fall, 
Who that day would be lpng dead, 
Pierced by a British musket-baLL 



THE STUDENT'S TALE 



20G 



You know the rest. In the books you have 

read, 
How the British Regulars fired and 

fled,— 
How the farmers gave them ball for ball, 
From behind each fence and farm-yard 

wall, 
Chasing the red-coats down the lane, 
Then crossing the fields to emerge again 
Under the trees at the turn of the road, 
And only pausing to fire and load. 

So through the night rode Paul Revere ; 
A.nd so through the night went his cry of 

alarm 
To every Middlesex village and farm, — 
A cry of defiance and not of fear, 
A voice in the darkness, a knock at the 

door, 
And a word that shall echo forevermore ! 
For, borne on the night-wind of the Past, 
Through all our history, to the last, 
In the hour of darkness and peril and 

need, 
The people will waken and listen to hear 
The hurrying hoof-beats of that steed, 
And the midnight message of Paul Revere. 



INTERLUDE 

The Landlord ended thus his tale, 

Then rising took down from its nail 

The sword that hung there, dim with dust, 

And cleaving to its sheath with rust, 

And said, " This sword was in the fight." 

The Poet seized it, and exclaimed, 

" It is the sword of a good knight, 

Though homespun was his coat-of-mail ; 

What matter if it be not named 

Joyeuse, Colada, Durindale, 

Excalibar, or Aroundight, 

Or other name the books record ? 

Your ancestor, who bore this sword 

As Colonel of the Volunteers, 

Mounted upon his old gray mare, 

Seen here and there and everywhere, 

To me a grander shape appears 

Than old Sir William, or what not, 

Clinking about in foreign lands 

With iron gauntlets on his hands, 

And on his head an iron pot ! " 

All laughed ; the Landlord's face grew red 
As his escutcheon on the wall ; 



He could not comprehend at all 

The drift of what the Poet said ; 

For those who had been longest dead 

Were always greatest in his eyes ; 

And he was speechless with surprise 

To see Sir William's plumed head 

Brought to a level with the rest, 

And made the subject of a jest. 

And this perceiving, to appease 

The Landlord's wrath, the others' fea,£S, 

The Student said, with careless ease, 

" The ladies and the cavaliers, 

The arms, the loves, the courtesies, 

The deeds of high emprise, I sing ! 

Thus Ariosto says, in words 

That have the stately stride and ring 

Of armed knights and clashing swords. 

Now listen to the tale I bring ; 

Listen ! though not to me belong 

The flowing draperies of his song, 

The words that rouse, the voice thsA 

charms. 
The Landlord's tale was one of arms, 
Only a tale of love is mine, 
Blending the human and divine, 
A tale of the Decameron, told 
In Palmieri's garden old, 
By Fiametta, laurel-crowned, 
While her companions lay around, 
And heard the intermingled sound 
Of airs that on their errands sped, 
And wild birds gossiping overhead, 
And lisp of leaves, and fountain's fall, 
And her own voice more sweet than all, 
Telling the tale, which, wanting these, 
Perchance may lose its power to please." 



THE STUDENT'S TALE 
THE FALCON OF SER FEDERIGO 

One summer morning, when the sun was 1 

hot, 
Weary with labor in his garden-plot, 
On a rude bench beneath his cottage 

eaves, 
Ser Federigo sat among the leaves 
Of a huge vine, that, with its arms out- 
spread, 
Hung its delicious clusters overhead. 
Below him, through the lovely valley, 

flowed 
The river Arno, like a winding road, 
And from its banks were lifted high in air 



no 



TALES OF A WAYSIDE INN 



The spires and roofs of Florence called the 

Fair j 
To him a marble tomb, that rose above 
His wasted fortunes and his buried love. 
For there, in banquet and in tournament, 
His wealth had lavished been, his substance 

spent, 
To woo and lose, since ill his wooing sped, 
Monna Giovanna, who his rival wed, 
Yet ever in his fancy reigned supreme, 
The ideal woman of a young man's dream. 

Then he withdrew, in poverty and pain, 
To this small farm, the last of his domain, 
His only comfort and his only care 
To prune his vines, and plant the fig and 

pear ; 
His only forester and only guest 
His falcon, faithful to him, when the rest, 
Whose willing hands had found so light of 

yore 
The brazen knocker of his palace door, 
Had now no strength to lift the wooden 

latch, 
That entrance gave beneath a roof of 

thatch. 
Companion of his solitary ways, 
Purveyor of his feasts on holidays, 
On him this melancholy man bestowed 
The love with which his nature overflowed. 

And so the empty-handed years went 

round, 
Vacant, though voiceful with prophetic 

sound, 
And so, that summer morn, he sat and 

mused 
With folded, patient hands, as he was used, 
And dreamily before his half-closed sight 
Floated the vision of his lost delight. 
Beside him, motionless, the drowsy bird 
Dreamed of the chase, and in his slumber 

heard 
The sudden, scythe-like sweep of wings, 

that dare 
The headlong plunge through eddying 

gulfs of air, 
Then, starting broad awake upon his perch, 
Tinkled his bells, like mass-bells in a 

church, 
And looking at his master, seemed to say, 
" Ser Federigo f shall we hunt to-day ? " 

Ser Federigo thought not of the chase ; 
The tender vision of her lovely face, 



I will not say he seems to see, he sees 
In the leaf-shadows of the trellises, 
Herself, yet not herself ; a lovely child 
With flowing tresses, and eyes wide and 

wild, 
Coming undaunted up the garden walk, 
And looking not at him, but at the hawk. 
" Beautiful falcon ! " said he, " would that I 
Might hold thee on my wrist, or see thee 

fly!" 
The voice was hers, and made strange 

echoes start 
Through all the haunted chambers of his 

heart, 
As an seolian harp through gusty doors 
Of some old ruin its wild music pours. 

" Who is thy mother, my fair boy ? " he 

said, 
His hand laid softly on that shining head. 
"Monna Giovanna. Will you let me stay 
A little while, and with your falcon play ? 
We live there, just beyond your garder 

wall, 
In the great house behind the poplars tall.' 

So he spake on ; and Federigo heard 
As from afar each softly uttered word, 
And drifted onward through the golden 

gleams 
And shadows of the misty sea of dreams, 
As mariners becalmed through vapor* 

drift, 
And feel the sea beneath them sink and 

lift, 
And hear far off the mournful breakers 

roar, 
And voices calling faintly from the shore I 
Then waking from his pleasant reveries, 
He took the little boy upon his knees, 
And told him stories of his gallant bird, 
Till in their friendship he became a 

third. 

Monna Giovanna, widowed in her prime, 
Had come with friends to pass the summer 

time 
In her grand villa, half-way up the hill, 
O'erlooking Florence, but retired and still ; 
With iron gates, that opened through long 

lines 
Of sacred ilex and centennial pines, 
And terraced gardens, and broad steps of 

stone, 
And sylvan deities, with moss o'ergrown, 



THE STUDENT'S TALE 



211 



And fountains palpitating in the heat, 
And all Val d'Arno stretched beneath its 

feet. 
Here in seclusion, as a widow may, 
The lovely lady whiled the hours away, 
Pacing in sable robes the statued hall, 
Herself the stateliest statue among all, 
And seeing more and more, with secret 

Her husband risen and living in her boy, 
Till the lost sense of life returned again, 
Not as delight, but as relief from pain. 
Meanwhile the boy, rejoicing in his 

strength, 
Stormed down the terraces from length to 

length ; 
The screaming peacock chased in hot pur- 
suit, 
And climbed the garden trellises for fruit. 
But his chief pastime was to watch the 

flight, 
Of a gerfalcon, soaring into sight, 
Beyond the trees that fringed the garden 

wall, 
Then downward stooping at some distant 

call ; 
And as he gazed full often wondered he 
Who might the master of the falcon be, 
Until that happy morning, when he found 
Master and falcon in the cottage ground. 

And now a shadow and a terror fell 
On the great house, as if a passing-bell 
Tolled from the tower, and filled each 

spacious room 
With secret awe and preternatural gloom ; 
The petted boy grew ill, and day by day 
Pined with mysterious malady away. 
The mother's heart would not be com- 
forted ; 
Her darling seemed to her already dead, 
And often, sitting by the sufferer's side, 
" What can I do to comfort thee ? " she 

cried. 
At first the silent lips made no reply, 
But, moved at length by her importunate 

cry, 
"Give me," he answered, with imploring 

tone, 
" Ser Federigo's falcon for my own ! " 

No answer could the astonished mother 

make ; 
How could she ask, e'en for her darling's 

sake, 



Such favor at a luckless lover's hand, 
AVell knowing that to ask was to command ? 
Well knowing, what all falconers con- 
fessed, 
In all the land that falcon was the best, 
The master's pride and passion and de- 
light, 
And the sole pursuivant of this poor 

knight. 
But yet, for her child's sake, she could no 

less 
Than give assent, to soothe his restlessness, 
So promised, and then promising to keep 
Her promise sacred, saw him fall asleep. 

The morrow was a bright September morn ; 
The earth was beautiful as if new-born ; 
There was that nameless splendor every- 
where, 
That wild exhilaration in the air, 
Which makes the passers in the city street 
Congratulate each other as they meet. 
Two lovely ladies, clothed in cloak and 

hood, 
Passed through the garden gate into the 

wood, 
Under the lustrous leaves, and through the 

sheen 
Of dewy sunshine showering down be- 
tween. 
The one, close-hooded, had the attractive 

grace 
Which sorrow sometimes lends a woman's 

face ; 
Her dark eyes moistened with the miste 

that roll 
From the gulf-stream of passion in the 

soul ; 
The other with her hood thrown back, her 

hair 
Making a golden glory in the air, 
Her cheeks suffused with an auroral 

blush, 
Her young heart singing louder than the 

thrush, 
So walked, that morn, through mingled 

light and shade, 
Each by the other's presence lovelier made, 
Monna Giovanna and her bosom friend, 
Intent upon their errand and its end. 

They found Ser Federigo at his toil, 
Like banished Adam, delving in the soil • 
And when he looked and these fair womes 
spied, 



2*2 



TALES OF A WAYSIDE INN 



The garden suddenly was glorified ; 
His long-lost Eden was restored again, 
And the strange river winding through the 

plain 
No longer was the Arno to his eyes, 
But the Euphrates watering Paradise ! 

Monna Giovanna raised her stately head, 
And with fair words of salutation said : 
'* Ser Federigo, we come here as friends, 
Hoping in this to make some poor amends 
For past unkindness. I who ne'er before 
Would even cross the threshold of your 

door, 
I who in happier days such pride main- 
tained, 
Refused your banquets, and your gifts dis- 
dained, 
This morning come, a self-invited guest, 
To put your generous nature to the test, 
And breakfast with you under your own 

vine." 
To which he answered : " Poor desert of 

mine, 
Not your unkindness call it, for if aught 
Is good in me of feeling or of thought, 
From you it comes, and this last grace out- 
weighs 
All sorrows, all regrets of other days." 

And after further compliment and talk, 

Among the asters in the garden walk 

He left his guests ; and to his cottage 

turned, 
And as he entered for a moment yearned 
For the lost splendors of the days of old, 
The ruby glass, the silver and the gold, 
And felt how piercing is the sting of pride, 
By want embittered and intensified. 
He looked about him for some means or 

way 
To keep this unexpected holiday ; 
Searched every cupboard, and then searched 

again, 
Summoned the maid, who came, but came 

in vain ; 
*' The Signor did not huni to-day," she 

said, 
" There 's nothing in the house but wine 

and bread." 
Then suddenly the drowsy falcon shook 
His little bells, with that sagacious look, 
Which said, as plain as language to the 

ear, 
* If anything is wanting, I am here ! " 



Yes, everything is wanting, gallant bird 4 
The master seized thee without furthsh? 

word. 
Like thine own lure, he whirled thee round i 

ah me ! 
The pomp and flutter of brave falconry, 
The bells, the jesses, the bright scarlet 

hood, 
The flight and the pursuit o'er field and 

wood, 
All these forevermore are ended now ; 
No longer victor, but the victim thou ! 

Then on the board a snow-white cloth hi 

spread, 
Laid on its wooden dish the loaf of bread, 
Brought puiple grapes with autumn sun- 
shine hot, 
The fragrant peach, the juicy bergamot ; 
Then in the midst a flask of wine he placed 
And with autumnal flowers the banquet 

graced. 
Ser Federigo, would not these suffice 
Without thy falcon stuffed with cloves an<? 
spice ? 

When all was ready, and the courtly dame 
With her companion to the cottage came, 
Upon Ser Federigo's brain there fell 
The wild enchantment of a magic spell ! 
The room they entered, mean and low and 

small, 
Was changed into a sumptuous banquet- 
hall, 
With fanfares by aerial trumpets blown ; 
The rustic chair she sat on was a throne ; 
He ate celestial food, and a divine 
Flavor was given to his country wine, 
And the poor falcon, fragrant with his spiee 5 
A peacock was, or bird of paradise ! 

When the repast was ended, they arose 
And passed again into the garden-close. 
Then said the lady, " Far too well I know s 
Remembering still the days of long ago, 
Though you betray it not, with what sur= 

prise 
You see me here in this familiar wise. 
You have no children, and you cannot 

guess 
What anguish, what unspeakable distress 
A mother feels, whose child is lying ill, 
Nor how her heart anticipates his will. 
And yet for this, you see me lay aside 
All womanly reserve and check of pride* 



INTERLUDE 



213 



And ask the thing most precious in your 

sight, 
Your falcon, your sole comfort and delight, 
Which if you find it in your heart to give, 
My poor, unhappy boy perchance may 

live." 

Ser Federigo listens, and replies, 
With tears of love and pity in his eyes : 
" Alas, dear lady ! there can be no task 
So sweet to me, as giving when you ask. 
One little hour ago, if I had known 
This wish of yours, it would have been my 

own. 
But thinking in what manner I could best 
Do honor to the presence of my guest, 
I deemed that nothing worthier could be 
Than what most dear and precious was to 

me ; 
And so my gallant falcon breathed his last 
To furnish forth this morning our repast." 

In mute contrition, mingled with dismay, 
The gentle lady turned her eyes away, 
Grieving that ne such sacrifice should 

make 
And kill his falcou for a woman's sake, 
Yet feeling in her heart a woman's pride, 
That nothing she could ask for was denied ; 
Then took her leave, and passed out at the 

gate 
With footstep slow and soul disconsolate. 

Three days went by, and lo ! a passing- 

fceU 
Tolled from the little chapel in the dell ; 
Ten strokes Ser Federigo heard, and said, 
Breathing a prayer, " Alas ! her child is 

dead ! " 
Three months went by ; and lo ! a merrier 

chime 
Rang from the chapel bells at Christmas- 
time ; 
The cottage was deserted, and no more 
Ser Federigo sat beside its door, 
2*ut now, with servitors to do his will, 
1» the grand villa, half-way up the hill, 
S** at the Christmas feast, and at his side 
Monna Giovanna, his beloved bride, 
Never so beautiful, so kind, so fair, 
Enthroned once more in the old rustic 

chair, 
High-perched upon the back of which there 

stood 
The image of a falcon carved in wood, 



And underneath the inscription, with a 

date, 
" All things come round to him who will 

but wait." 



INTERLUDE 

Soon as the story reached its end, 
One, over eager to commend, 
Crowned it with injudicious praise ; 
And then the voice of blame found vent, 
And fanned the embers of dissent 
Into a somewhat lively blaze. 

The Theologian shook his head ; 

" These old Italian tales," he said, 

" From the much-praised Decameron down 

Through all the rabble of the rest, 

Are either trifling, dull, or lewd ; 

The gossip of a neighborhood 

In some remote provincial town, 

A scandalous chronicle at best ! 

They seem to me a stagnant fen, 

Grown rank with rushes and with reeds, 

Where a white lily, now and then, 

Blooms in the midst of noxious weeds 

And deadly nightshade on its banks ! " 

To this the Student straight replied, 

" For the white lily, many thanks ! 

One should not say, with too much pride^ 

Fountain, I will not drink of thee ! 

Nor were it grateful to forget 

That from these reservoirs and tanks 

Even imperial Shakespeare drew 

His Moor of Venice, and the Jew, 

And Romeo and Juliet, 

And many a famous comedy." 

Then a long pause ; till some one said,, 

" An Angel is flying overhead ! " 

At these words spake the Spanish Jew, 

And murmured with an inward breath : 

" God grant, if what you say be true, 

It may not be the Angel of Death ! " 

And then another pause ; and then, 

Stroking his beard, he said again : 

" This brings back to my memory 

A story in the Talmud told, 

That book of gems, that book of gold, 

Of wonders many and manifold, 

A tale that often comes to me, 

And fills my heart, and haunts my brails 

And never wearies nor grows old." 



214 



TALES OF A WAYSIDE INN 



THE SPANISH JEW'S TALE 

THE LEGEND OF RABBI BEN LEVI 

Rabbi Ben Levi, on the Sabbath, read 

A volume of the Law, in which it said, 

" No man shall look upon my face and 

live." 
And as he read, he prayed that God would 

give 
His faithful servant grace with mortal eye 
To look upon His face and yet not die. 

Then fell a sudden shadow on the page, 
And, lifting up his eyes, grown dim with 

age. 
He saw the Angel of Death before him 

stand, 
Holding a naked sword in his right hand. 
Rabbi Ben Levi was a righteous man, 
Yet through his veins a chill of terror ran. 
With trembling voice he said, " What wilt 

thou here ? " 
The Angel answered, " Lo ! the time draws 

near 
When thou must die ; yet first, by God's 

decree, 
Whate'er thou askest shall be granted 

thee." 
Replied the Rabbi, " Let these living eyes 
First look upon my place in Paradise." 

Then said the Angel, " Come with me and 

look." 
Rabbi Ben Levi closed the sacred book, 
And rising, and uplifting his gray head, 
" Give me thy sword," he to the Angel 

said, 
" Lest thou shouldst fall upon me by the 

way." 
The Angel smiled and hastened to obey, 
Then led him forth to the Celestial Town, 
And set him on the wall, whence, gazing 

down, 
Rabbi Ben Levi, with his living eyes, 
Might look upon his place in Paradise. 

Then straight into the city of the Lord 
The Rabbi leaped with the Death-Angel's 

sword, 
And through the streets there swept a 

sudden breath 
Of something there unknown, which men 

call death. 



Meanwhile the Angel stayed without, and 

cried, 
" Come back ! " To which the Rabbi's 

voice replied, 
" No ! in the name of God, whom I adore, 
I swear that hence I will depart no 

more ! " 

Then all the Angels cried, " O Holy One, 
See what the son of Levi here hath done ! 
The kingdom of Heaven he takes by 

violence, 
And in Thy name refuses to go hence ! " 
The Lord replied, " My Angels, be not 

wroth ; 
Did e'er the son of Levi break his oath ? 
Let him remain ; for he with mortal eye 
Shall look upon my face and yet not die." 

Beyond the outer wall the Angel of Death 
Heard the great voice, and said, with pant- 
ing breath, 
" Give back the sword, and let me go my 

way." 
Whereat the Rabbi paused, and answered, 

" Nay ! 
Anguish enough already hath it caused 
Among the sons of men." And while he 

paused 
He heard the awful mandate of the Lord 
Resounding through the air, "Give back 
the sword ! " 

The Rabbi bowed his head in silent prayer, 
Then said he to the dreadful Angel, 

" Swear 
No human eye shall look on it again ; 
But when thou takest away the souls of 

men, 
Thyself unseen, and with an unseen sword, 
Thou wilt perform the bidding of the 

Lord." 
The Angel took the sword again, and 

swore, 
And walks on earth unseen forevermore. 



INTERLUDE 

He ended : and a kind of spell 

Upon the silent listeners fell. 

His solemn manner and his words 

Had touched the deep, mysterious chorda 

That vibrate in each human breast 

Alike, but not alike confessed. 






THE SICILIAN'S TALE 



215 



The spiritual world seemed near ; 
And close above them, full of fear, 
Its awful adumbration passed, 
A luminous shadow, vague and vast. 
They almost feared to look, lest there, 
Embodied from the impalpable air, 
They might behold the Angel stand, 
Holding the sword in his right hand. 

At last, but in a voice subdued, 

Not to disturb their dreamy mood, 

Said the Sicilian : " While you spoke, 

Telling your legend marvellous, 

Suddenly in my memory woke 

The thought of one, now gone from us, 

An old Abate, meek and mild, 

My friend and teacher, when a child, 

Who sometimes in those days of old 

The legend of an Angel told, 

Which ran, as I remember thus." 



THE SICILIAN'S TALE 

KING ROBERT OF SICILY 

Robert of Sicily, brother of Pope Urbane 
And Valmond, Emperor of Allemaine, 
Apparelled in magnificent attire, 
With retinue of many a knight and squire, 
On St. John's eve, at vespers, proudly 

sat 
And heard the priests chant the Magnifi- 
cat. 
And as he listened, o'er and o'er again 
Repeated, like a burden or refrain, 
He caught the words, " Deposuit potentes 
De sede, et exaltavit humiles j " 
And slowly lifting up his kingly head 
He to a learned clerk beside him said, 
P What mean these words ? " The clerk 

made answer meet, 
" He has put down the mighty from their 

seat, 
And has exalted them of low degree." 
Thereat King Robert muttered scornfully, 
" 'T is well that such seditious words are 

sung 
Only by priests and in the Latin tongue ; 
For unto priests and people be it known, 
There is no power can push me from my 

throne ! " 
And leaning back, he yawned and fell 

asleep, 
Lolled by the chant monotonous and deep. 



When he awoke, it was already night ; 
The church was empty, and there was na 

light, 
Save where the lamps, that glimmered few 

and faint, 
Lighted a little space before some saint. 
He started from his seat and gazed around, 
But saw no living thing and heard no 

sound. 
He groped towards the door, but it was 

locked ; 
He cried aloud, and listened, and then 

knocked, 
And uttered awful threatenings and com- 
plaints, 
And imprecations upon men and saints. 
The sounds reechoed from the roof and 

walls 
As if dead priests were laughing in their 

stalls. 

At length the sexton, hearing from with* 

out 
The tumult of the knocking and the shout, 
And thinking thieves were in the house of 

prayer, 
Came with his lantern, asking, "Who is 

there?" 
Half choked with rage, King Robert fiercely 

said, 
" Open : 't is I, the King ! Art thou 

afraid ? " 
The frightened sexton, muttering, with a 

curse, 
" This is some drunken vagabond, or 

worse ! " 
Turned the great key and flung the portal 

wide ; 
A man rushed by him at a single stride, 
Haggard, half naked, without hat or cloak, 
Who neither turned, nor looked at him, nor 

spoke, 
But leaped into the blackness of the night, 
And vanished like a spectre from his 

sight. 

Robert of Sicily, brother of Pope Urbane 
And Valmond, Emperor of Allemaine, 
Despoiled of his magnificent attire, 
Bareheaded, breathless, and besprent with 

mire, 
With sense of wrong and outrage desper- 
ate, 
Strode on and thundered at the palace 
gate; 



TALES OF A WAYSIDE INN 



Rushed through the courtyard, thrusting 
in his rage 

To right and left each seneschal and page, 

And hurried up the hroad and sounding 
stair, 

His white face ghastly in the torches' 
glare. 

From hall to hall he passed with breathless 
speed ; 

Voices and cries he heard, but did not 
heed, 

Until at last he reached the banquet-room, 

Blazing with light, and breathing with per- 
fume. 

There on the dais sat another king, 
Wearing his robes, his crown, his signet- 
ring, 
King Robert's self in features, form, and 

height, 
But all transfigured with angelic light ! 
It was an Angel ; and his presence there 
With a divine effulgence filled the air, 
An exaltation, piercing the disguise, 
Though none the hidden Angel recognize. 

A moment speechless, motionless, amazed, 
The throneless monarch on the Angel 

gazed, 
Who met his look of anger and surprise 
With the divine compassion of his eyes ; 
Then said, "Who art thou? and why 

com'st thou here ? " 
To which King Robert answered with a 

sneer, 
" I am the King, and come to claim my own 
From an impostor, who usurps my 

throne ! " 
And suddenly, at these audacious words, 
Up sprang the angry guests, and drew their 

swords ; 
The Angel answered, with unruffled brow, 
" Nay, not the King, but the King's Jester, 

thou 
Henceforth shalt wear the bells and scal- 
loped cape, 
And for thy counsellor shalt lead an ape ; 
Thou shalt obey my servants when they 

call, 
A.nd wait upon my henchmen in the hall ! " 

Deaf to King Robert's threats and cries and 

prayers, 
They thrust him from the hall and down 

the stairs ; 



A group of tittering pages ran before, 
And as they opened wide the folding-door, 
His heart failed, for he heard, with strange 

alarms, 
The boisterous laughter of the men-at-arms, 
And all the vaulted chamber roar and ring 
With the mock plaudits of " Long lis© the 

King!" 

Next morning, waking with the day's first 

beam, 
He said within himself, " It was a dream ! '* 
But the straw rustled as he turned his 

head, 
There were the cap and bells beside his bed, 
Around him rose the bare, discolored walls, 
Close by, the steeds were champing in their 

stalls, 
And in the corner, a revolting shape, 
Shivering and chattering sat the wretched 

ape. 
It was no dream ; the world he loved so 

much 
Had turned to dust and ashes at his touch ! 

Days came and went ; and now returned 

again 
To Sicily the old Saturnian reign ; 
Under the Angel's governance benign 
The happy island danced with corn and 

wine, 
And deep within the mountain's burning 

breast 
Enceladus, the giant, was at rest. 

Meanwhile King Robert yielded to his fate, 
Sullen and silent and disconsolate. 
Dressed in the motley garb that Jesters 

wear, 
With look bewildered and a vacant stare 
Close shaven above the ears, as monks are 

shorn, 
By courtiers mocked, by pages laughed to 

scorn, 
His only friend the ape, his only food 
What others left, — he still was unsub- 
dued. 
And when the Angel met him on his way, 
And half in earnest, half in jest, would say, 
Sternly, though tenderly, that he might 

feel 
The velvet scabbard held a sword of steel, 
" Art thou the King ? " the passion of his 

woe 
Burst from him in resistless overflow. 






THE SICILIAN'S TALE 



21? 



Lnd, lifting high his forehead, he would 

fling 
Die haughty answer back, " I am, I am the 

King ! " 

Almost three years were ended ; when 

there came 
Ambassadors of great repute and name 
From Valmond, Emperor of Allemaine, 
Unto King Robert, saying that Pope Ur- 
bane 
By letter summoned them forthwith to come 
On Holy Thursday to his city of Rome. 
The Angel with great joy received his 

guests, 
A.nd gave them presents of embroidered 

vests, 
And velvet mantles with rich ermine lined, 
And rings and jewels of the rarest kind. 
Then he departed with them o'er the sea 
Into the lovely land of Italy, 
Whose loveliness was more resplendent 

made 
By the mere passing of that cavalcade, 
With plumes, and cloaks, and housings, and 

the stir 
Of jewelled bridle and of golden spur. 
And lo ! among the menials, in mock state, 
Upon a piebald steed, with shambling gait, 
His cloak of fox-tails flapping in the wind, 
The solemn ape demurely perched behind, 
King Robert rode, making huge merriment 
In all the country towns through which 

they went. 

The Pope received them with great pomp 

and blare 
Of bannered trumpets, on Saint Peter's 

square, 
Giving his benediction and embrace, 
Fervent, and full of apostolic grace. 
While with congratulations and with 

prayers 
He entertained the Angel unawares, 
Robert, the Jester, bursting through the 

crowd, 
Into their presence rushed, and cried aloud, 
| " I am the King ! Look, and behold in 

me 
Robert, your brother, King of Sicily ! 
This man, who wears my semblance to your 

eyes, 
Is an impostor in a king's disguise. 
Do you not know me ? does no voice within 
Answer my cry, and say we are akin ? " 



The Pope in silence, but with troubled 

mien, 
Gazed at the Angel's countenance serene ; 
The Emperor, laughing, said, " It is strange 

sport 
To keep a madman for thy Fool at court ! H 
And the poor, baffled Jester in disgrace 
Was hustled back among the populace. 

In solemn state the Holy Week went by, 
And Easter Sunday gleamed upon the sky ; 
The presence of the Angel, with its light, 
Before the sun rose, made the city bright, 
And with new fervor filled the hearts of 

men, 
Who felt that Christ indeed had risen 

again. 
Even the Jester, on his bed of straw, 
With haggard eyes the unwonted splendor 

saw, 
He felt within a power unfelt before, 
And, kneeling humbly on his chamber floor, 
He heard the rushing garments of the Lord 
Sweep through the silent air, ascending 

heavenward. 

And now the visit ending, and once more 
Valmond returning to the Danube's shore, 
Homeward the Angel journe} r ed, and again 
The land was made resplendent with his 

train, 
Flashing along the towns of Italy 
Unto Salerno, and from thence by sea. 
And when once more within Palermo's 

wall, 
And, seated on the throne in his great hall, 
He heard the Angelus from convent 

towers, 
As if the better world conversed with ours, 
He beckoned to King Robert to draw 

nigher, 
And with a gesture bade the rest retire ; 
And when they were alone, the Angel said, 
" Art thou the King ? " Then, bowing 

down his head, 
King Robert crossed both hands upon his 

breast, 
And meekly answered him : " Thou know- 

est best ! 
My sins as scarlet are ; let me go hence, 
And in some cloister's school of penitence, 
Across those stones, that pave the way to 

heaven, 
Walk barefoot, till my guilty soul be 

shriven ! " 



«f8 



TALES OF A WAYSIDE INN 



The Angel smiled, and from his radiant 

face 
A holy light illumined all the place, 
And through the open window, loud and 

clear, 
They heard the monks chant in the chapel 

near, 
Above the stir and tumult of the street : 
u He has put down the mighty from their 

seat, 
And has exalted them of low degree ! " 
And through the chant a second melody 
Rose like the throbbing of a single string : 
" I &m an Angel, and thou art the King ! " 

King Robert, who was standing near the 

throne, 
Lifted his eyes, and lo ! he was alone ! 
But all apparelled as in days of old, 
With ermined mantle and with cloth of 

gold ; 
And when his courtiers came, they found 

him there 
Kneeling upon the floor, absorbed in silent 

prayer. 

INTERLUDE 

And then the blue-eyed Norseman told 
A Saga of the days of old. 
" There is," said he, " a wondrous book 
Of Legends in the old Norse tongue, 
Of the dead kings of Norroway, — 
Legends that once were told or sung 
In many a smoky fireside nook 
Of Iceland, in the ancient day, 
By wandering Saga-man or Scald ; 
1 Heimskringla ' is the volume called ; 
And he who looks may find therein 
The story that I now begin." 

And in each pause the story made 

Upon his violin he played, 

As an appropriate interlude, 

Fragments of old Norwegian tunes 

That bound in one the separate runes, 

And held the mind in perfect mood, 

Entwining and encircling all 

The strange and antiquated rhymes 

With melodies of ol'den times ; 

As over some half-ruined wall, 

Disjointed and about to fall, 

Fresh woodbines climb and interlace, 

And keep the loosened stones in place. 



THE MUSICIAN'S TALE 

THE SAGA OF KING OLAF 

I 

THE CHALLENGE OF THOR 

I am the God Thor, 
I am the War God, 
I am the Thunderer ! 
Here in my Northland, 
My fastness and fortress, 
Reign I forever ! 

Here amid icebergs 
Rule I the nations ; 
This is my hammer, 
Miolner the mighty ; 
Giants and sorcerers 
Cannot withstand it ! 

These are the gauntlets 
Wherewith I wield it, 
And hurl it afar off ; 
This is my girdle ; 
Whenever I brace it, 
Strength is redoubled ! 

The light thou beholdest 
Stream through the heavena 
In flashes of crimson, 
Is but my red beard 
Blown by the night-wind, 
Affrighting the nations ! 

Jove is my brother ; 
Mine eyes are the lightning f 
The wheels of my chariot 
Roll in the thunder, 
The blows of my hammer 
Ring in the earthquake ! 

Force rules the world still, 
Has ruled it, shall rule it % 
Meekness is weakness, 
Strength is triumphant, 
Over the whole earth 
Still is it Thor's-Day ! 

Thou art a God too, 

O Galilean ! 

And thus single-handed 



THE MUSICIAN'S TALE 



?.ig 



Unto the combat, 
Gauntlet or Gospel, 
Here I defy thee 1 

II 

KING OLAF'S RETURN 

And King Olaf heard the cry, 
Saw the red light in the sky, 

Laid his hand upon his sword, 
As he leaned upon the railing, 
And his ships went sailing, sailing 

Northward into Drontheim fiord. 

There he stood as one who dreamed ; 
And the red light glanced and gleamed 

On the armor that he wore ; 
And he shouted, as the rifted 
Streamers o'er him shook and shifted, 

" I accept thy challenge, Thor ! " 

To avenge his father slain, 
And reconquer realm and reign, 

Came the youthful Olaf home, 
Through the midnight sailing, sailing, 
Listening to the wild wind's wailing, 

And the dashing of the foam. 

To his thoughts the sacred name 
Of his mother Astrid came, 

And the tale she oft had told 
Of her flight by secret passes 
Through the mountains and morasses, 

To the home of Hakon old. 

Then strange memories crowded back 
Of Queen Gunhild's wrath and wrack, 

And a hurried flight by sea ; 
Of grim Vikings, and the rapture 
Of the sea-fight, and the capture, 

And the life of slavery. 

How a stranger watched his face 
In the Esthonian market-place, 

Scanned his features one by one, 
Saying, " We should know each other ; 
I am Sigurd, Astrid's brother, 

Thou art Olaf, Astrid's son ! " 

Then as Queen Allogia's page, 
Old in honors, young in age, 
Chief of all her men-at-arms ; 



Till vague whispers, and mysterious, 
Reached King Valdemar, the imperious, 
Filling him with strange alarms. 

Then his cruisings o'er the seas, 
Westward to the Hebrides 

And to Scilly's rocky shore ; 
And the hermit's cavern dismal, 
Christ's great name and rites baptismal 

In the ocean's rush and roar. 

All these thoughts of love and strife 
Glimmered through his lurid life, 

As the stars' iutenser light 
Through the red flames o'er him trail- 

in ?' 
As his ships went sailing, sailing 

Northward in the summer night. 

Trained for either camp or court, 
Skilful in each manly sport, 

Young and beautiful and tall ; 
Art of warfare, craft of chases, 
Swimming, skating, snow-shoe races, 

Excellent alike in all. 

When at sea, with all his rowers, 
He along the bending oars 

Outside of his ship could run. 
He the Smalsor Horn ascended, 
And his shining shield suspended 

On its summit, like a sun. 

On the ship-rails he could stand, 
Wield his sword with either hand, 

And at once two javelins throw ; 
At all feasts where ale was strongest 
Sat the merry monarch longest. 

First to come and last to go. 

Norway never yet had seen 
One so beautiful of mien, 

One so royal in attire, 
When in arms completely furnished. 
Harness gold-inlaid and burnished, 

Mantle like a flame of fire. 

Thus came Olaf to his own, 
When upon the night-wind blown 

Passed that cry along the shore ; 
And he answered, while the rifted 
Streamers o'er him shook and shifted, 

" I accept thy challenge, Thor ! " 



220 



TALES OF A WAYSIDE INN 



III 



THORA OF RIMOL 

" Thora of Rimol ! hide me ! hide me ! 

Banger and shame and death betide me ! 

For Olaf the King is hunting me down 

Through field and forest, through thorp 
and town ! " 
Thus cried Jarl Hakon 
To Thora, the fairest of women. 

u Hakon Jarl ! for the love I bear thee 
Neither shall shame nor death come near 

thee ! 
But the hiding-place wherein thou must 

lie 
Is the cave underneath the swine in the 
sty." 
Thus to Jarl Hakon 
Said Thora, the fairest of women. 

So Hakon Jarl and his base thrall Karker 
Crouched in the cave, than a dungeon 

darker, 
As Olaf came riding, with men in mail, 
Through the forest roads into Orkadale, 
Demanding Jarl Hakon 
Of Thora, the lairest of women. 

" Rich and honored shall be whoever 
The head of Hakon Jarl shall dissever ! " 
Hakon heard him, and Karker the slave, 
Through the breathing-holes of the dark- 
some cave. 

Alone in her chamber 

Wept Thora, the fairest of women. 

Said Karker, the crafty, " I will not slay 

thee ! 
For all the king's gold I will never betray 

thee « " 
" Then why dost thou turn so pale, O 

churl, 
And then again black as the earth ? " said 

the Earl. 
More pale and more faithful 
Was Thora, the fairest of women. 

From a dream in the night the thrall 

started, saying, 
"Round my neck a gold ring King Olaf 

was laying ! " 



And Hakon answered, " Beware of the 

king ! 
He will lay round thy neck a blood-red 
ring." 
At the ring on her fir.ger 
Gazed Thora, the fairest of women. 

At daybreak slept Hakon, with sorrow 

encumbered, 
But screamed and drew up his feet as te 

slumbered ; 
The thrall in the darkness plunged with his 

knife, 
Aud the Earl awakened no more in this 

life. 
But wakeful and weeping 
Sat Thora, the fairest of women. 



At Nidarholm the priests are all singing, 
Two ghastly heads on the gibbet are swing- 
ing ; 
One is Jarl Hakon's and one is his thrall's 
And the people are shouting from windows 
and walls ; 
While alone in her chamber 
Swoons Thora, the fairest of women. 



IV 



QUEEN SIGRID THE HAUGHTY 

Queen Sigrid the Haughty sat proud and 

aloft 
In her chamber, that looked over meadow 
and croft. 
Heart's dearest, 
Why dost thou sorrow so ? 

The floor with tassels of fir was besprent, 
Filling the room with their fragrant scent 

She heard the birds sing, she saw the sue 

shine, 
The air of summer was sweeter than wine. 

Like a sword without scabbard the bright 

river lay 
Between her own kingdom and Norroway. 

But Olaf the King had sued for her hand, 
The sword would be sheathed, the rive* 
be spanned. 






THE MUSICIAN'S TALE 



221 



Her maidens were seated around her knee, 
Working bright figures in tapestry. 

And one was singing the ancient rune 
Of Brynhilda's love and the wrath of 
fcudrun. 

And through it, and round it, and over it 

all 
Sounded incessant the waterfall. 

The Queen in her hand held a ring of 

gold, 
From the door of Lade"s Temple old. 

King Olaf had sent her this wedding gift, 
But her thoughts as arrows were keen and 
swift. 

She had given the ring to her goldsmiths 

twain, 
Who smiled, as they handed it back again. 

And Sigrid the Queen, in her haughty 

way, 
Said, " Why do you smile, my goldsmiths, 

say ? " 

And they answered : " O Queen ! if the 

truth must be told, 
The ring is of copper, and not of gold ! " 

The lightning flashed o'er her forehead and 

cheek, 
She only murmured, she did not speak : 

" If in his gifts he can faithless be, 
There will be no gold in his love to me." 

A footstep was heard on the outer stair, 
And in strode King Olaf with royal air. 

He kissed the Queen's hand, and he whis- 
pered of love, 
And swore to be true as the stars are above. 

But she smiled with contempt as she an- 
swered : " O King, 

Will you swear it, as Odin once swore, on 
the ring ? " 

And the King : " Oh speak not of Odin to 

me, 
The wife of King Olaf a Christian must 

be." 



Looking straight at the King, with hei 

level brows, 
She said, " I keep true to my faitn and my 

vows." 

Then the face of King Olaf was darkens 

with gloom, 
He rose in his auger and strode through 

the room. 

" Why, then, should I care to have thee ? y 

he said, — 
" A faded old woman, a heathenish jade 1 : * 

His zeal was stronger than fear or love, 
And he struck the Queen in the face with 
his glove. 

Then forth from the chamber in anger he 

fled, 
And the wooden stairway shook with his 

tread. 

Queen Sigrid the Haughty said under her 

breath, 
"This insult, King Olaf, shall be thy 
death ! " 
Heart's dearest, 
Why dost thou sorrow so ? 



THE SKERRY OF SHRIEKS 

Now from all King Olaf 's farms 

His men-at-arms 
Gathered on the Eve of Easter ; 
To his house at Angvalds-ness 

Fast they press, 
Drinking with the royal feaster. 

Loudly through the wide-flung door 

Came the roar 
Of the sea upon the Skerry ; 
And its thunder loud and near 

Reached the ear, 
Mingling with their voices merry. 

" Hark ! " said Olaf to his Scald, 

Halfred the Bald, 
" Listen to that song, and learn it ! 
Half my kingdom would I give, 

As I live, 
If by such songs you would earn it i 



222 



TALES OF A WAYSIDE INN 



" For of all the runes and rhymes 

Of all times, 
Best I like the ocean's dirges, 
When the old harper heaves and rocks, 

His hoary locks 
Flowing and flashing in the surges ! " 

Halfred answered : " I am called 

The Unappalled ! 
Nothing hinders me or daunts me. 
Hearken to me, then, King, 

While I sing 
The great Ocean Song that haunts me." 

" I will hear your song sublime 

Some other time," 
Says the drowsy monarch, yawning, 
And retires ; each laughing guest 

Applauds the jest ; 
Then they sleep till day is dawning. 

Pacing up and down the yard, 

King Olaf 's guard 
Saw the sea-mist slowly creeping 
O'er the sands, and up the hill, 

Gathering still 
Round the house where they were sleeping. 

It was not the fog he saw, 

Nor misty flaw, 
That above the landscape brooded ; 
It was Eyvind Kallda's crew 

Of warlocks blue 
With their caps of darkness hooded .' 

Round and round the house they go, 

Weaving slow 
Magic circles to encumber 
And imprison in their ring 

Olaf the King, 
As he helpless lies in slumber. 

Then athwart the vapors dun 

The Easter sun 
Streamed with one broad track of splendor ! 
In their real forms appeared 

The warlocks weird, 
Awful as the Witch of Endor. 

Blinded by the light that glared, 

They groped and stared, 
Round about with steps unsteady ; 
From his window Olaf gazed, 

And, amazed, 
u Who are these strange people ? " said he, 



" Eyvind Kallda and his men ! " 

Answered then 
From the yard a sturdy farmer ; 
While the men-at-arms apace 

Filled the place, 
Busily buckling on their armor. 

From the gates they sallied forth, 

South and north, 
Scoured the island coast around them, 
Seizing all the warlock band, 

Foot and hand 
On the Skerry's rocks they bound them. 

And at eve the king again 

Called his train, 
And, with all the candles burning, 
Silent sat and heard once more 

The sullen roar 
Of the ocean tides returning. 

Shrieks and cries of wild despair 

Filled the air, 
Growing fainter as they listened ; 
Then the bursting surge alone 

Sounded on ; — 
Thus the sorcerers were christened S 

" Sing, O Scald, your song sublime, 

Your ocean-rhyme," 
Cried King Olaf : " it will cheer me ! " 
Said the Scald, with pallid cheeks, 

" The Skerry of Shrieks 
Sings too loud for you to hear me ! " 



vr 



THE WRAITH OF ODIN 

The guests were loud, the ale was strong, 
King Olaf feasted late and long ; 
The hoary Scalds together sang ; 
O'erhead the smoky rafters rang. 

Dead rides Sir Morten of Fogelsang. 

The door swung wide, with creak and dii 
A blast of cold night-air came in, 
And on the threshold shivering stood 
A one-eyed guest, with cloak and hood. 
Dead rides Sir Morten of Fogelsang. 

The King exclaimed, " O graybeard pale ! 
Come warm thee with this cup of ale." 



THE MUSICIAN'S TALE 



223 



The foaming draught the old man quaffed, 
The noisy guests looked on and laughed. 
Dead rides Sir Morten of Fogelsang. 

Then spake the King : " Be not afraid : 
Sit here by me." The guest obeyed, 
And, seated at the table, told 
Tales of the sea, and Sagas old. 

Dead rides Sir Morten of Fogelsang. 

And ever, when the tale was o'er, 
The King demanded yet one more ; 
Till Sigurd the Bishop smiling said, 
" 'T is late, O King, and time for bed." 
Dead rides Sir Morten of Fogelsang. 

The King retired ; the stranger guest 
Followed and entered with the rest ; 
The lights were out, the pages gone, 
But still the garrulous guest spake on. 
Dead rides Sir Morten of Fogelsang. 

As one who from a volume reads, 
He spake of heroes and their deeds, 
Of lands and cities he had seen, 
And stormy gulfs that tossed between. 
Dead rides Sir Morten of Fogelsang. 

Then from his lips in music rolled 
The Havamal of Odin old, 
With sounds mysterious as the roar 
Of billows on a distant shore. 

Dead rides Sir Morten of Fogelsancf. 

" Do we not learn from runes and rhymes 
Made by the gods in elder times, 
And do not still the great Scalds teach 
That silence better is than speech ? " 

Dead rides Sir Morten of Fosrelsansr. 

Smiling at this, the King replied, 
" Thy lore is by thy tongue belied ; 
For never was I so enthralled 
Either by Saga-man or Scald." 

Dead rides Sir Morten of Fogelsang. 

The Bishop said, " Late hours we keep ! 
Night wanes, O King ! 't is time for 

sleep ! " 
Then slept the King, and when he woke 
The guest was gone, the morning broke. 
Dead rides Sir Morten of Fogelsang 

They found the doors securely barred, 
They found the watch-dog in the yard, 



There was no footprint in the grass, 
And none had seen the stranger pass. 

Dead rides Sir Morten of Fogelsang. 

King Olaf crossed himself and said : 
" I know that Odin the Great is dead ; 
Sure is the triumph of our Faith, 
The one-eyed stranger was his wraith." 
Dead rides Sir Morten of Fogelsang 



VII 

IRON-BEARD 

Olaf the King, one summer morn, 
Blew a blast on his bugle-horn, 
Sending his signal through the land of 
Drontheim. 

And to the Hus-Ting held at Mere 
Gathered the farmers far and near, 
With their war weapons ready to confront 
him. 

Ploughing under the morning star, 
Old Iron-Beard in Yriar 
Heard the summons, chuckling with a low 
laugh. 

He wiped the sweat-drops from his brow, 

Unharnessed his horses from the plough, 

And clattering came on horseback to Kine 

Olaf. * 

He was the churliest of the churls ; 
Little he cared for king or earls ; 
Bitter as home-brewed ale were his foam- 
ing passions. 

Hodden-gray was the garb he wore, 
And by the Hammer of Thor he swore ; 
He hated the narrow town, and all its 
fashions. 

But he loved the freedom of his farm, 

His ale at night, by the fireside warm, 

Gudrun his daughter, with her flaxen 

tresses. 

He loved his horses and his herds, 
The smell of the earth, and the song of 
birds, 
His well-filled barns, his brook with its 

watercressea. 



Z2A. 



TALES OF A WAYSIDE INN 



Huge and cumbersome was his frame ; 
21is beard, from which he took his name, 
Frosty and fierce, like that of Hymer the 
Giant. 

So at the Hus-Ting he appeared, 

The farmer of Yriar, Iron-Beard, 

s)n horseback, in an attitude defiant. 

And to King Olaf he cried aloud, 
Out of the middle of the crowd, 
That tossed about him like a stormy 



" Such sacrifices shalt thou bring 
To Odin and to Thor, O King, 
As other kings have done in their devotion I " 

King Olaf answered : " I command 
This land to be a Christian land ; 
Here is my Bishop who the folk baptizes ! 

" But if you ask me to restore 
Your sacrifices, stained with gore, 
Then will I offer human sacrifices ! 

" Not slaves and peasants shall they be, 
But men of note and high degree, 
Such men as Orm of Lyra and Kar of 
Gryting ! " 

Then to their Temple strode he in, 
And loud behind him heard the din 
Of his men-at-arms and the peasants fiercely 
fighting. 

There in the Temple, carved in wood, 
The image of great Odin stood, 
jknd other gods, with Thor supreme among 
them. 

King Olaf smote them with the blade 
Of his huge war-axe, gold inlaid, 
And downward shattered to the pavement 
flung them. 

At the same moment rose without, 
From the contending crowd, a shout, 
k mingled sound of triumph and of wailing. 

And there upon the trampled plain 
The farmer Iron-Beard lay slain, 
Midway between the assailed and the 
assailing. 



King Olaf from the doorway spoke : 
" Choose ye between two things, mi 
folk, 
To be baptized or given up to slaugh- 
ter ! " 

And seeing their leader stark and dead, 
The people with a murmur said, 
" O King, baptize us with thy holy water." 

So all the Drontheim land became 
A Christian land in name and fame, 
In the old gods no more believing and 
trusting. 

And as a blood-atonement, soon 
King Olaf wed the fair Gudrun ; 
And thus in peace ended the Drontheim 
Hus-Ting ! 



VIII 

GUDRUN 

On King Olaf 's bridal night 
Shines the moon with tender light, 
And across the chamber streams 
Its tide of dreams. 

At the fatal midnight hour, 
When all evil things have power, 
In the glimmer of the moon 
Stands Gudrun. 

Close against her heaving breast 
Something in her hand is pressed 5 
Like an icicle, its sheen 
Is cold and keen. 

On the cairn are fixed her eyes 
Where her murdered father lies, 
And a voice remote and drear 
She seems to hear. 

What a bridal night is this ! 
Cold will be the dagger's kiss ; 
Laden with the chill of death 
Is its breath. 

Like the drifting snow she sweeps 
To the couch where Olaf sleeps ; 
Suddenly he wakes and stirs, 
His eyes meet hers. 



THE MUSICIAN'S TALE 



225 



" What is that," King Olaf said, 
u Gleams so bright above my head ? 
Wherefore standest thou so white 
In pale moonlight ? " 

" 5 T is the bodkin that I wear 
When at night I bind my hair ; 
It woke me falling on the floor ; 
'Tis nothing more." 

" Forests have ears, and fields have eyes ; 
Often treachery lurking lies 
Underneath the fairest hair ! 
Gudrun beware ! " 

Ere the earliest peep of morn 
Blew King Olaf 's bugle-horn ; 
And forever sundered ride 
Bridegroom and bride ! 



IX 



THANGBRAND THE PRIEST 

Short of stature, large of limb, 
Burly face and russet beard, 
All the women stared at him, 
When in Iceland he appeared. 
"Look ! " they said, 
With nodding head, 
" There goes Thangbrand, Olaf's Priest." 

All the prayers he knew by rote, 

He could preach like Chrysostome, 
From the Fathers he could quote, 
He had even been at Rome. 
A learned clerk, 
A man of mark, 
Was this Thangbrand, Olaf's Priest. 

He was quarrelsome and loud, 

And impatient of control, 
Boisterous in the market crowd, 
Boisterous at the wassail-bowl, 
Everywhere 

Would drink and swear, 
Swaggering Thangbrand, Olaf's Priest. 

In his house this malcontent 

Could the King no longer bear, 
So to Iceland he was sent 

I To convert the heathen there ; 
And away 
One summer day 
Sailed this Thangbrand, Olaf's Priest. 



There in Iceland, o'er their books 
Pored the people day and night, 
But he did not like their looks, 
Nor the songs they used to write. 
" All this rhyme 
Is waste of time ! " 
Grumbled Thangbrand, Olaf's Priest. 

To the alehouse, where he sat, 

Came the Scalds and Saga-men ; 
Is it to be wondered at 

That they quarrelled now and then, 
When o'er his beer 
Began to leer 
Drunken Thangbrand, Olaf's Priest ? 

All the folk in Altafiord 

Boasted of their island grand ; 
Saying in a single word, 
" Iceland is the finest land 
That the sun 
Doth shine upon ! " 
Loud laughed Thangbrand, Olaf's Priest 

And he answered : " What 's the use 

Of this bragging up and down, 

When three women and one goose 

Make a market in your town ! " 

Every Scald 

Satires drawled 

On poor Thangbrand, Olaf's Priest. 

Something worse they did than that ; 

And what vexed him most of all 
Was a figure in shovel hat, 

Drawn in charcoal on the wall ; 
With words that go 
Sprawling below, 
" This is Thangbrand, Olaf's Priest. n 

Hardly knowing what he did, 

Then he smote them might and main> 
Thorvald Veile and Veterlid 
Lay there in the alehouse slain. 
" To-day we are gold, 
To-morrow mould ! " 
Muttered Thangbrand, Olaf's Priest. 

Much in fear of axe and rope, 

Back to Norway sailed he then. 
" O King Olaf ! little hope 

Is there of these Iceland men ! M 
Meekly said, 
With bending head, 
! Pious Thangbrand, Olaf's Priest. 



226 TALES OF A 


WAYSIDE INN 




And along the Salten Fiord 


X 


Preach the Gospel with my sword, 




Or be brought back in my shroud ! " 


RAUD THE STRONG 


So northward from Drontheim 




Sailed King Olaf ! 


*' All the old gods are dead, 




All the wild warlocks fled ; 




But the White Christ lives and reigns, 


XI 


And throughout my wide domains 




His Gospel shall be spread ! " 


BISHOP SIGURD OF SALTEN FIORD 


On the Evangelists 




Thus swore King Olaf . 


Loud the angry wind was wailing 




As King Olaf's ships came sailing 


But still in dreams of the night 


Northward out of Drontheim haven 


Beheld he the crimson light, 


To the mouth of Salten Fiord. 


And heard the voice that defied 




Him who was crucified, 


Though the flying sea-spray drenches 


And challenged him to the fight. 


Fore and aft the rowers' benches, 


To Sigurd the Bishop 


Not a single heart is craven 


King Olaf confessed it. 


Of the champions there on board- 


And Sigurd the Bishop said, 


All without the Fiord was quiet, 


" The old gods are not dead, 


But within it storm and riot, 


For the great Thor still reigns, 


Such as on his Viking cruises 


And among the Jarls and Thanes 


Raud the Strong was wont to ride. 


The old witchcraft still is spread." 




Thus to King Olaf 


And the sea through all its tide-ways 


Said Sigurd the Bishop. 


Swept the reeling vessels sideways, 




As the leaves are swept through sluices s 


" Far north in the Salten Fiord, 


When the flood-gates open wide. 


By rapine, fire, and sword, 




Lives the Viking, Baud the Strong ; 


" 'T is the warlock ! 't is the demon 


All the Godoe Isles belong 


Raud ! " cried Sigurd to the seamen ; 


To him and his heathen horde." 


" But the Lord is not affrighted 


Thus went on speaking 


By the witchcraft of his foes." 


Sigurd the Bishop. 






To the ship's bow he ascended, 


" A warlock, a wizard is he, 


By his choristers attended, 


And the lord of the wind and the sea ; 


Round him were the tapers lighted, 


And whichever way he sails, 


And the sacred incense rose. 


He has ever favoring gales, 




By his craft in sorcery." 


On the bow stood Bishop Sigurd, 


Here the sign of the cross 


In his robes, as one transfigured, 


Made devoutly King Olaf. 


And the Crucifix he planted 




High amid the rain and mist. 


" With rites that we both abhor, 




He worships Odin and Thor ; 


Then with holy water sprinkled 


So it cannot yet be said, 


All the ship ; the mass-bells tinkled i 


That all the old gods are dead, 


Loud the monks around him chanted, 


And the warlocks are no more," 


Loud he read the Evangelist. 


Flushing with anger 
Said Sigurd the Bishop. 




As into the Fiord they darted, 




On each side the water parted ; 


Then King Olaf cried aloud : 


Down a path like silver molten 


" I will talk with this mighty Baud, 


Steadily rowed King Olaf's ships 5 



THE MUSICIAN'S TALE 



227 



.iteadily burned all night the tapers, 
And the White Christ through the vapors 
Gleamed across the Fiord of Salten, 
As through John's Apocalypse, — 

Till at last they reached Raud's dwelling 
On the little isle of Gelling ; 
Not a guard was at the doorway, 

Not a glimmer of light was seen. 

But at anchor, carved and gilded, 
Lay the dragon-ship he builded ; 
*T was the grandest ship in Norway, 
With its crest and scales of green. 

Up the stairway, softly creeping, 
To the loft where Raud was sleeping, 
With their fists they burst asunder 
Bolt and bar that held the door. 

Drunken with sleep and ale they found 

him, 
Dragged him from his bed and bound him, 
While he stared with stupid wonder 
At the look and garb they wore. 

Then King Olaf said : " O Sea-King ! 
Little time have we for speaking, 
Choose between the good and evil ; 
Be baptized ! or thou shalt die ! " 

But in scorn the heathen scoffer 
Answered : "I disdain thine offer; 
Neither fear I God nor Devil ; 

Thee and thy Gospel I defy ! " 

Then between his jaws distended, 
When his frantic struggles ended, 
Through King Olaf's horn an adder, 

Touched by fire, they forced to glide. 

Sharp his tooth was as an arrow, 

As he gnawed through bone and marrow ; 

But without a groan or shudder, 

Raud the Strong blaspheming died. 

Then baptized they all that region, 
Swarthy Lap and fair Norwegian, 
Far as swims the salmon, leaping, 
Up the streams of Salten Fiord. 

In their temples Thor and Odin 
Lay in dust and ashes trodden, 



As King Olaf, onward sweeping, 

Preached the Gospel with his sword. 

Then he took the carved and gilded 
Dragon-ship that Raud had builded, 
And the tiller single-handed 

Grasping, steered into the main. 

Southward sailed the sea-gulls o'er him, 
Southward sailed the ship that bore him. 
Till at Drontheim haven landed 
Olaf and his crew again. 



XII 

KING OLAF'S CHRISTMAS 

At Drontheim, Olaf the King 
Heard the bells of Yule-tide ring, 

As he sat in his banquet-hall, 
Drinking the nut-brown ale, 
With his bearded Berserks hale 

And tall. 

Three days his Yule-tide feasts 
He held with Bishops and Priests, 

And his horn filled up to the brim ; 
But the ale was never too strong, 
Nor the Saga-man's tale too long, 

For him. 

O'er his drinking-horn, the sign 
He made of the cross divine, 

As he drank, and muttered his prayers : 
But the Berserks evermore 
Made the sign of the Hammer of Thor 

Over theirs. 

The gleams of the fire-light dance 
Upon helmet and hauberk and lance, 

And laugh in the eyes of the King ; 
And he cries to Halfred the Scald, 
Gray-bearded, wrinkled, and bald, 

" Sing ! " 

" Sing me a song divine, 
With a sword in every line, 

And this shall be thy reward." 
And he loosened the belt at his waist, 
And in front of the singer placed 

His sword. 



228 



TALES OF A WAYSIDE INN 



rt Quern-biter of Hakon the Good, 
Wherewith at a stroke he hewed 

The millstone through and through, 
And Foot-breadth of Thoralf the Strong, 
Were neither so broad nor so long, 

Nor so true." 

Then the Scald took his harp and sang, 
And loud through the music rang 

The sound of that shining word ; 
And the harp-strings a clangor made, 
As if they were struck with the blade 

Of a sword. 

And the Berserks round about 
Broke forth into a shout 

That made the rafters ring : 
They smote with their fists on the board, 
And shouted, " Long live the Sword, 

And the King I" 

But the King said, " O my son, 
I miss the bright word in one 

Of thy measures and thy rhymes." 
And Halfred the Scald replied, 
" In another 't was multiplied 

Three times." 

Then King Olaf raised the hilt 
Of iron, cross-shaped and gilt, 

And said, " Do not refuse ; 
Count well the gain and the loss, 
Thor's hammer or Christ's cross : 

Choose ! " 

And Halfred the Scald said, "This 
In the name of the Lord I kiss, 

Who on it was crucified ! " 
And a shout went round the board, 
" In the name of Christ the Lord, 

Who died ! " 

Then over the waste of snows 
The noonday sun uprose, 

Through the driving mists revealed, 
Like the lifting of the Host, 
By incense-clouds almost 

Concealed. 

On the shining wall a vast 
And shadowy cross was cast 

From the hilt of the lifted sword, 
And in foaming cups of ale 
The Berserks drank " Was-hael ! 

To the Lord ! " 



XIII 

THE BUILDING OF THE LONG SERPENT 

Thorberg Skafting, master-builder, 

In his ship-yard by the sea, 
Whistling, said, " It would bewilder 
Any man but Thorberg Skafting, 
Any man but me ! " 

Near him lay the Dragon stranded, 

Built of old by Raud the Strong, 
And King Olaf had commanded 
He should build another Dragon, 
Twice as large and long. 

Therefore whistled Thorberg Skafting, 
As he sat with half-closed eyes, 

And his head turned sideways, drafting 

That new vessel for King Olaf 
Twice the Dragon's size. 

Round him busily hewed and hammered 
Mallet huge and heavy axe ; 

Workmen laughed and sang and clam 
ored ; 

Whirred the wheels, that into rigging 
Spun the shining flax ! 






All this tumult heard the master, — 

It was music to his ear ; 
Fancy whispered all the faster, 
" Men shall hear of Thorberg 
ing 
For a hundred year ! " 



Skaft 






Workmen sweating at the forges 
Fashioned iron bolt and bar, 
Like a warlock's midnight orgies 
Smoked and bubbled the black caldrofc 
With the boiling tar. 

Did the warlocks mingle in it, 

Thorberg Skafting, any curse ? 
Could you not be gone a minute 
But some mischief must be doing, 
Turning bad to worse ? 

'T was an ill wind that came wafting 
From his homestead words of woe ; 

To his farm went Thorberg Skafting, 

Oft repeating to his workmen, 
Build ye thus and so. 



THE MUSICIAN'S TALE 



229 



After long delays returning 

Came the master back by night ; 

To his ship-yard longing, yearning, 

Hurried he, and did not leave it 
Till the morning's light. 

* Come and see my ship, my darling ! " 
On the morrow said the King ; 

M Finished now from keel to carling ; 

Never yet was seen in Norway 
Such a wondrous thing ! " 

In the ship-yard, idly talking, 

At the ship the workmen stared : 
Some one, all their labor balking, 
Down her sides had cut deep gashes, 
Not a plank was spared ! 

" Death be to the evil-doer ! " 

With an oath King Olaf spoke ; 
" But rewards to his pursuer ! " 
And with wrath his face grew redder 
Than his scarlet cloak. 

Straight the master-builder, smiling, 
Answered thus the angry King : 

" Cease blaspheming and reviling, 

Olaf, it was Thorberg Skafting 
Who has done this thing ! " 

Then he chipped and smoothed the plank- 
ing* 

Till the King, delighted, swore, 
With much lauding and much thanking, 
" Handsomer is now my Dragon 

Than she was before ! " 

Seventy ells and four extended 

On the grass the vessel's keel ; 

High above it, gilt and splendid, 

Rose the figure-head ferocious 
With its crest of steel. 

Then they launched her from the tressels, 
In the ship-yard by the sea ; 

She was the grandest of all vessels, 

Never ship was built in Norway 
Half so fine as she ! 

The Long Serpent was she christened, 

'Mid the roar of cheer on cheer ! 
They who to the Saga listened 
Heard the name of Thorberg Skafting 
For a hundred year ! 



XIV 

THE CREW OF THE LONG SERPENT 

Safe at anchor in Drontheim bay 
King Olaf's fleet assembled lay, 

And, striped with white and blue, 
Downward fluttered sail and banner, 
As alights the screaming lanner ; 
Lustily cheered, in their wild manner. 

The Long Serpent's crew. 

Her forecastle man was Ulf the Red ; 
Like a wolf's was his shaggy head, 

His teeth as large and white ; 
His beard, of gray and russet blended. 
Round as a swallow's nest descended ; 
As standard-bearer he defended 

Olaf's flag in the fight. 

Near him Kolbiorn had his place, 
Like the King in garb and face, 

So gallant and so hale ; 
Every cabin-boy and varlet 
Wondered at his cloak of scarlet ; 
Like a river, frozen and star-lit, 

Gleamed his coat of mail. 

By the bulkhead, tall and dark, 
Stood Thrand Rame of Thelemark, 

A figure gaunt and grand ; 
On his hairy arm imprinted 
Was an anchor, azure-tinted ; 
Like Thor's hammer, huge and dinted 

Was his brawny hatrd. 

Einar Tamberskelver, bare 
To the winds his golden hair, 

By the mainmast stood ; 
Graceful was his form, and slender, 
And his eyes were deep and tender 
As a woman's, in the splendor 

Of her maidenhood. 

In the fore-hold Biorn and Bork 
Watched the sailors at their work : 

Heavens ! how they swore ! 
Thirty men they each commanded, 
Iron-sinewed, horny-handed, 
Shoulders broad, and chests expanded, 

Tugging at the oar. 

These, and many more like these, 
With King Olaf sailed the seas, 



230 



TALES OF A WAYSIDE INN 



Till the waters vast 
Filled them with a vague devotion, 
With the freedom and the motion, 
With the roll and roar of ocean 

And the sounding blast. 

When they landed from the fleet, 
How they roared through Drontheim's 
street, 
Boisterous as the gale ! 
How they laughed and stamped and 

pounded, 
Till the tavern roof resounded 
And the host looked on astounded 
As they drank the ale ! 

Never saw the wild North Sea 
Such a gallant company 

Sail its billows blue ! 
Never, while they cruised and quarrelled, 
Old King Gorm, or Blue-Tooth Harald, 
Owned a ship so well apparelled, 

Boasted such a crew ! 



XV 

A LITTLE BIRD IN THE A7R 

A little bird in the air 

Is singing of Thyri the fair, 

The sister of Svend the Dane ; 

And the song of the garrulous bird 

In the streets of the town is heard, 

And repeated again and again. 

Hoist up your sails of silk, 

And flee away from each other. 

To King Burislaf, it is said, 
Was the beautiful Thyri wed, 

And a sorrowful bride went she ; 
And after a week and a day 
She has fled away and away 

From his town by the stormy sea. 
Hoist up your sails of silk, 
And flee away from each other. 

They say, that through heat and through 

cold, 
Through weald, they say, and through 
wold, 
By day and by night, they say, 
She has fled ; and the gossips report 
She has come to King Olaf's court, 
And the town is all in dismay. 



Hoist up your sails of silk, 
And flee away from each other. 

It is whispered King Olaf has seen, 
Has talked with the beautiful Queen % 

And they wonder how it will end J 
For surely, if here she remain, 
It is war with King Svend the Dane, 
And King Burislaf the Vend ! 
Hoist up your sails of silk, 
And flee away from each other. 

Oh, greatest wonder of all ! 

It is published in hamlet and hall, 

It roars like a flame that is fanned ! 
The King — yes, Olaf the King — 
Has wedded her with his ring, 
And Thyri is Queen in the land ! 
Hoist up your sails of silk, 
And flee away from each other. 









XVI 

QUEEN THYRI AND THE ANGELICA STALKS 

Northward over Drontheim, 
Flew the clamorous sea-gulls, 
Sang the lark and linnet 
From the meadows green ; 

Weeping in her chamber, 
Lonely and unhappy, 
Sat the Drottning Thyri, 
Sat King Olaf's Queen. 

In at all the windows 
Streamed the pleasant sunshine^ 
On the roof above her 
Softly cooed the dove ; 

But the sound she heard not, 
Nor the sunshine heeded, 
For the thoughts of Thyri 
Were not thoughts of love. 

Then King Olaf entered, 
Beautiful as morning, 
Like the sun at Easter 
Shone his happy face J 

In his hand he carried 
Angelicas uprooted, 
With delicious fragrance 
Filling all the place. 



THE MUSICIAN'S TALE 



231 



Like a rainy midnight 
Sat the Drottning Thyri, 
Even the smile of Olaf 

Could not cheer her gloom ; 

Nor the stalks he gave her 
With a gracious gesture, 
And with words as pleasant 
As their own perfume. 

In her hands he placed them, 
And her jewelled fingers 
Through the green leaves glistened 
Like the dews of morn ; 

But she cast them from her, 
Haughty and indignant, 
On the floor she threw them 
With a look of scorn. 

" Richer presents," said she, 
" Gave King Harald Gormson 
To the Queen, my mother, 
Than such worthless weeds ; 

" When he ravaged Norway, 
Laying waste the kingdom, 
Seizing scatt and treasure 
For her royal needs. 

" But thou darest not venture 
Through the Sound to Vendland, 
My domains to rescue 
From King Burislaf ; 

" Lest King Svend of Denmark, 
Forked Beard, my brother, 
Scatter all thy vessels 
As the wind the chaff." 

Then up sprang King Olaf, 
Like a reindeer bounding, 
With an oath he answered 
Thus the luckless Queen : 

" Never yet did Olaf 
Fear King Svend of Denmark ; 
This right hand shall hale him 
By his forked chin ! " 

Then he left the chamber, 
Thundering through the doorway, 
Loud his steps resounded 
Down the outer stair. 



Smarting with the insult, 
Through the streets of Drontheim 
Strode he red and wrathful, 
With his stately air. 

All his ships he gathered, 
Summoned all his forces, 
Making his war levy 
In the region round. 

Down the coast of Norway, 
Like a flock of sea-gulls, 
Sailed the fleet of Olaf 

Through the Danish Sound. 

With his own hand fearless 
Steered he the Long Serpent, 
Strained the creaking cordage, 
Bent each boom and gaff ; 

Till in Vendland landing, 
The domains of Thyri 
He redeemed and rescued 
From King Burislaf. 

Then said Olaf, laughing, 
" Not ten yoke of oxen 
Have the power to draw us 
Like a woman's hair I 

" Now will I confess it, 
Better things are jewels 
Than angelica stalks are 
For a queen to wear," 



XVII 

KING SVEND OF THE FORKED BEARD 

Loudly the sailors cheered 
Svend of the Forked Beard, 
As with his fleet he steered 

Southward to Vendland ; 
Where with their courses hauled 
All were together called, 
Under the Isle of Svald 

Near to the mainland. 

After Queen Gunhild's death, 
So the old Saga saith, 
Plighted King Svend his faith 
To Sigrid the Haughty ; 



232 



TALES OF A WAYSIDE INN 



And to avenge his bride, 
Soothing her wounded pride, 
Over the waters wide 
King Olaf sought he. 

Still on her scornful face, 
Blushing with deep disgrace, 
Bore she the crimson trace 

Of Olaf 's gauntlet ; 
Like a malignant star, 
Blazing in heaven afar, 
Red shone the angry scar 

Under her frontlet. 

Oft to King Svend she spake, 
" For thine own honor's sake 
Shalt thou swift vengeance take 

On the vile coward ! " 
Until the King at last, 
Gusty and overcast, 
Like a tempestuous blast 

Threatened and lowered. 

Soon as the Spring appeared, 
Svend of the Forked Beard 
High his red standard reared, 

Eager for battle ; 
While every warlike Dane, 
Seizing his arms again, 
Left all unsown the grain, 

Unhoused the cattle. 

Likewise the Swedish King 
Summoned in haste a Thing, 
Weapons and men to bring 

In aid of Denmark ; 
Eric the Norseman, too, 
As the war-tidings flew, 
Sailed with a chosen crew 

From Lapland and Finmark. 

So upon Easter day 

Sailed the three kings away, 

Out of the sheltered bay, 

In the bright season ; 
With them Earl Sigvald came, 
Eager for spoil and fame ; 
Pity that such a name 

Stooped to such treason ! 

Safe under Svald at last, 
Now were their anchors cast, 
Safe from the sea and blast, 
Plotted the three kings ; 



While, with a base intent, 
Southward Earl Sigvald went, 
On a foul errand bent, 
Unto the Sea-kings. 

Thence to hold on his course 
Unto King Olaf 's force, 
Lying within the hoarse 

Mouths of Stet-haven ; 
Him to ensnare and bring 
Unto the Danish king, 
Who his dead corse would fling 

Forth to the raven ! 



XVIII 

KING OLAF AND EARL SIGVALD 

On the gray sea-sands 
King Olaf stands, 
Northward and seaward 
He points with his hands. 

With eddy and whirl 
The sea-tides curl, 
Washing the sandals 
Of Sigvald the Earl. 

The mariners shout, 
The ships swing about, 
The yards are all hoisted, 
The sails flutter out. 

The war-horns are played, 
The anchors are weighed, 
Like moths in the distance 
The sails flit and fade. 

The sea is like lead, 
The harbor lies dead, 
As a corse on the sea-shor^ 
Whose spirit has fled ! 

On that fatal day, 
The histories say, 
Seventy vessels 
Sailed out of the bay. 

But soon scattered wide 
O'er the billows they ride 9 
While Sigvald and Olaf 
Sail side by side. 



THE MUSICIAN'S TALE 233 


Cried the Earl : " Follow me ! 


On the forecastle Ulf the Red 


X your pilot will be, 


Watched the lashing of the ships ; 


For I know all the channels 


" If the Serpent lie so far ahead, 


Where flows the deep sea ! " 


We shall have hard work of it here,'* 




Said he with a sneer 


So into the strait 


On his bearded lips. 


Where his foes lie in wait, 




Gallant King Olaf 


King Olaf laid an arrow on string, 


Sails to his fate ! 


" Have I a coward on board ? " said he. 




" Shoot it another way, King ! " 


Then the sea-fog veils 


Sullenly answered Ulf, 


The ships and their sails ; 


The old sea-wolf ; 


Queen Sigrid the Haughty, 


" You have need of me ! " 


Thy vengeance prevails ! 






In front came Svend, the King of the 




Danes, 




Sweeping down with his fifty rowers ; 


XIX 


To the right, the Swedish king with hia 




thanes ; 


KING OLAF'S WAR-HORNS 


And on board of the Iron Beard 




Earl Eric steered 


" Srrike the sails ! " King Olaf said ; 


To the left with his oars. 


" Never shall men of mine take flight ; 




Never away from battle I fled, 


" These soft Danes and Swedes," said the 


Never away from my foes ! 


King, 


Let God disDose 


" At home with their wives had better stay, 


Of my life in the fight ! " 


Than come within reach of my Serpent'3 

sting : 
But where Eric the Norseman leads 


" Sound the horns ! " said Olaf the King ; 


And suddenly through the drifting brume 


Heroic deeds 


The blare of the horns began to ring, 


Will be done to-day ! " 


Like the terrible trumpet shock 




Of Regnarock, 


Then as together the vessels crashed, 


On the Day of Doom ! 


Eric severed the cables of hide, 




With which King Olaf's ships were lashed, 


Louder and louder the war-horns sang 


And left them to drive and drift 


Over the level floor of the flood ; 


With the currents swift 


All the sails came down with a clang, 


Of the outward tide. 


And there in the midst overhead 




The sun hung red 


Louder the war-horns growl and snarl, 


As a drop of blood. 


Sharper the dragons bite and sting ! 




Eric the son of Hakon Jarl 


Drifting down on the Danish fleet 


A death-drink salt as the sea 


Three together the ships were lashed, 


Pledges to thee, 


So that neither should turn and retreat ; 


Olaf the King ! 


In the midst, but in front of the rest, 




The burnished crest 




Of the Serpent flashed. 


XX 


King Olaf stood on the quarter-deck, 


EINAR TAMBERSKELVER 


Wkh bow of ash and arrows of oak, 




His gilded shield was without a fleck, 


It was Einar Tamberskelver 


His helmet inlaid with gold, 


Stood beside the mast ; 


And in many a fold 


From his yew-bow, tipped with silver, 


Hung his crimson cloak. 


Flew the arrows fast ; 



234 



TALES OF A WAYSIDE INN 



Aimed at Eric unavailing, 

As he sat concealed, 
Half behind the quarter-railing, 

Half behind his shield. 

First an arrow struck the tiller, 

Just above his head ; 
" Sing, O Eyvind Skaldaspiller," 

Then Earl Eric said. 
" Sing the song of Hakon dying, 

Sing his funeral wail ! " 
And another arrow flying 

Grazed his coat of mail. 

Turning to a Lapland yeoman, 

As the arrow passed, 
Said Earl Eric, " Shoot that bowman 

Standing by the mast." 
Sooner than the word was spoken 

Flew the yeoman's shaft ; 
Einar's bow in twain was broken, 

Einar only laughed. 

" What was that ? " said Olaf, standing 

On the quarter-deck. 
Si Something heard I like the stranding 

Of a shattered wreck." 
Einar then, the arrow taking 

From the loosened string, 
Answered, " That was Norway breaking 

From thy hand, O King ! " 

" Thou art but a poor diviner," 

Straightway Olaf said ; 
" Take my bow, and swifter, Einar, 

Let thy shafts be sped." 
Of his bows the fairest choosing, 

Reached he from above ; 
Einar saw the blood-drops oozing 

Through his iron glove. 

But the bow was thin and narrow ; 

At the first assay, 
O'er its head he drew the arrow, 

Flung the bow away ; 
Said, with hot and angry temper 

Flushing in his cheek, 
K Olaf ! for so great a Kamper 

Are thy bows too weak ! " 

Then, with smile of joy defiant 

On his beardless lip, 
Scaled he, light and self-reliant, 

Eric's dragon-ship. 



Loose his golden locks were flowing, 
Bright his armor gleamed ; 

Like Saint Michael overthrowing 
Lucifer he seemed. 



XXI 

KING OLAF'S DEATH-DRINK 

All day has the battle raged, 
All day have the ships engaged, 
But not yet is assuaged 

The vengeance of Eric the Earl. 

The decks with blood are red, 
The arrows of death are sped, 
The ships are filled with the dead, 
And the spears the champions hurl. 

They drift as wrecks on the tide, 
The grappling-irons are plied, 
The boarders climb up the side, 
The shouts are feeble and few. 

Ah ! never shall Norway again 
See her sailors come back o'er the main \ 
They all lie wounded or slain, 
Or asleep in the billows blue ! 

On the deck stands Olaf the King, 
Around him whistle and sing 
The spears that the foemen fling, 

And the stones they hurl with their hands 

In the midst of the stones and the spears, 
Kolbiorn, the marshal, appears, 
His shield in the air he uprears, 
By the side of King Olaf he stands. 

Over the slippery wreck 
Of the Long Serpent's deck 
Sweeps Eric with hardly a check, 
His lips with anger are pale ; 

He hews with his axe at the mast, 
Till it falls, with the sails overcast, 
Like a snow-covered pine in the vast 
Dim forests of Orkadale. 

Seeking King Olaf then, 
He rushes aft with his men, 
As a hunter into the den 

Of tbe bear, when he stands at bay. 






THE MUSICIAN'S TALE 



23$ 



" Remember Jarl Hakon ! " he cries ; 
When lo ! on his wondering eyes, 
Two kingly figures arise, 
Two Olafs in warlike array t 

Then Kolbiorn speaks in the ear 
Of King Olaf a word of cheer, 
In a whisper that none may hear, 
With a smile on his tremulous lip ; 

Two shields raised high in the air, 
Two flashes of golden hair, 
Two scarlet meteors' glare, 

And both have leaped from the ship. 

Earl Eric's men in the boats 
Seize Kolbiorn's shield as it floats, 
And cry, from their hairy throats, 
" See ! it is Olaf the King ! " 

While far on the opposite side 
Floats another shield on the tide, 
Like a jewel set in the wide 
Sea-current's eddying ring. 

There is told a wonderful tale, 
How the King stripped off his mail, 
Like leaves of the brown sea-kale, 
As he swam beneath the main ; 

But the young grew old and gray, 
And never, by night or by day, 
In his kingdom of Norroway 
Was King Olaf seen again ! 



XXII 

THE NUN OF NIDAROS 

In the convent of Drontheim, 
Alone in her chamber 
Knelt Astrid the Abbess, 
At midnight, adoring, 
Beseeching, entreating 
The Virgin and Mother. 

She heard in the silence 
The voice of one speaking, 
Without in the darkness, 
In gusts of the night-wind, 
Now louder, now nearer, 
Now lost in the distance. 



The voice of a stranger 
It seemed as she listened, 
Of some one who answered 
Beseeching, imploring, 
A cry from afar off 
She could not distinguish. 

The voice of Saint John, 
The beloved disciple, 
Who wandered and waited 
The Master's appearance, 
Alone in the darkness, 
Unsheltered and friendless, 

" It is accepted, 

The angry defiance, 

The challenge of battle I 

It is accepted, 

But not with the weapons 

Of war that thou wieldest I 

"Cross against corselet, 
Love against hatred, 
Peace-cry for war-cry ! 
Patience is powerful ; 
He that o'ercometh 
Hath power o'er the nations 

"As torrents in summer, 
Half dried in their channels, 
Suddenly rise, though the 
Sky is still cloudless, 
For rain has been falling 
Far off at their fountains ; 

" So hearts that are fainting 
Grow full to o'erflowing, 
And they that behold it 
Marvel, and know not 
That God at their fountains 
Far off has been raining ! 

" Stronger than steel 

Is the sword of the Spirit 5 

Swifter than arrows 

The light of the truth is, 

Greater than anger 

Is love, and subdueth ! 

" Thou art a phantom, 
A shape of the sea-mist, 
A shape of the brumal 
Rain, and the darkness 
Fearful and formless ; 
Day dawns and thou art not 



*3& 



TALES OF A WAYSIDE INN 



" The dawu is not distant, 
Nor is the night starless ; 
Love is eternal ! 
God is still God, and 
His faith shall not fail us : 
Christ is eternal ! " 



INTERLUDE 

A. STRAIN of music closed the tale, 
A low, monotonous, funeral wail, 
That with its cadence, wild and sweet, 
Made the long Saga more complete. 

" Thank God," the Theologian said, 
" The reign of violence is dead, 
Or dying surely from the world ; 
While Love triumphant reigns instead, 
And in a brighter sky o'erhead 
His blessed banners are unfurled. 
And most of all thank God for this : 
The war and waste of clashing creeds 
Now end in words, and not in deeds, 
And no one suffers loss, or bleeds, 
For thoughts that men call heresies. 

" I stand without here in the porch, 

I hear the bell's melodious din, 

I hear the organ peal within, 

I hear the prayer, with words that scorch 

Like sparks from an inverted torch, 

I hear the sermon upon sin, 

With threatenings of the last account. 

And all, translated in the air, 

Reach me but as our dear Lord's Prayer, 

And as the Sermon on the Mount. 

" Must it be Calvin, and not Christ ? 
Must it be Athanasian creeds, 
Or holy water, books, and beads ? 
Must struggling souls remain content 
With councils and decrees of Trent ? 
And can it be enough for these 
The Christian Church the year embalms 
With evergreens and boughs of palms, 
And fills the air with litanies ? 

"I know that yonder Pharisee 
Thanks God that he is not like me ; 
In my humiliation dressed, 
I only stand and beat my breast> 
And pray for human cbaviiy. 



" Not to one church alone, but seven, 

The voice prophetic spake from heaven 5 

And unto each the promise came, 

Diversified, but still the same ; 

For him that overcometh are 

The new name written on the stone, 

The raiment white, the crown, the throne^ 

And I will give him the Morning Star I 

" Ah ! to how many Faith has been 
No evidence of things unseen, 
But a dim shadow, that recasts 
The creed of the Phantasiasts, 
For whom no Man of Sorrows died, 
For whom the Tragedy Divine 
Was but a symbol and a sign, 
And Christ a phantom crucified ! 

" For others a diviner creed 
Is living in the life they lead. 
The passing of their beautiful feet 
Blesses the pavement of the street, 
And all their looks and words repeat 
Old Fuller's saying, wise and sweet, 
Not as a vulture, but a dove, 
The Holy Ghost came from above. 

" And this brings back to me a tale 
So sad the bearer well may quail, 
And question if such things can be ; 
Yet in the chronicles of Spain 
Down the dark pages runs this stain, 
And naught can wash them white again, 
So fearful is the tragedy." 



THE THEOLOGIAN'S TALE 

TORQUEMADA 

" December 5 [at midnight]. Finished Torquemada, 
— a dismal story of fanaticism ; but in its main points 
historic. See De Castro, Protestanles Espanolus, page 
310." 

In the heroic days when Ferdinand 
And Isabella ruled the Spanish land, 
And Torquemada, with his subtle brain, 
Ruled them as Grand Inquisitor of Spain, 
In a great castle near Valladolid, 
Moated and high and by fair woodlands 

hid, 
There dwelt, as from the chronicles we 

learn, 
An old Hidalgo proud and taciturn, 






THE THEOLOGIAN'S TALE 



237 



Whose name has perished, with his towers 

of stone, 
And all his actions save this one alone ; 
This one, so terrible, perhaps 't were best 
If it, too, were forgotten with the rest ; 
Unless, perchance, our eyes can see therein 
The martyrdom triumphant o'er the sin ; 
A double picture, with its gloom and glow, 
The splendor overhead, the death below. 

This sombre man counted each day as lost 
On which his feet no sacred threshold 

crossed ; 
And when he chanced the passing Host to 

meet, 
He knelt and prayed devoutly in the 

street ; 
Oft he confessed ; and with each mutinous 

thought, 
As with wild beasts at Ephesus, he fought. 
In deep contrition scourged himself in 

Lent, 
Walked in processions, with his head down 

bent, 
At plays of Corpus Christi oft was seen, 
And on Palm Sunday bore his bough of 

green, 
flis sole diversion was to hunt the boar 
Through tangled thickets of the forest 

hoar, 
Or with his jingling mules to hurry down 
To some grand bull-fight in the neighbor- 
ing town, 
Or in the crowd with lighted taper stand, 
When Jews were burned, or banished from 

the land. 
Then stirred within him a tumultuous joy ; 
The demon whose delight is to destroy 
Shook him, and shouted with a trumpet 

tone, 
"Kill ! kill ! and let the Lord find out his 

own ! " 

And now, in that old castle in the wood, 
His daughters, in the dawn of womanhood, 
.Returning from their convent school, had 

made 
Resplendent with their bloom the forest 

shade, 
Reminding him of their dead mother's 

face, 
When first she came into that gloomy 

place, — 
A memory in his heart as dim and sweet 
As moonlight in a solitary street, 



Where the same rays, that lift the sea, are 

thrown 
Lovely but powerless upon walls of stone. 
These two fair daughters of a mother dead 
Were all the dream had left him as it fled. 
A joy at first, and then a growing care, 
As if a voice within him cried, " Beware ! " 
A vague presentiment of impending doom, 
Like ghostly footsteps in a vacant room, 
Haunted him day and night ; a formless 

fear 
That death to some one of his house was 

near, 
With dark surmises of a hidden crime, 
Made life itself a death before its time. 
Jealous, suspicious, with no sense of shame, 
A spy upon his daughters he became ; 
With velvet slippers, noiseless on the floors, 
He glided softly through half-open doors ; 
Now in the room, and now upon the stair, 
He stood beside them ere they were aware ; 
He listened in the passage when they 

talked, 
He watched them from the casement when 

they walked, 
He saw the gypsy haunt the river's side, 
He saw the monk among the cork-trees 

glide ; 
And, tortured by the mystery and the 

doubt 
Of some dark secret, past his finding out, 
Baffled he paused ; then reassured again 
Pursued the flying phantom of his brain. 
He watched them even when they knelt in 

church ; 
And then, descending lower in his search, 
Questioned the servants, and with eager 

eyes 
Listened incredulous to their replies ; 
The gypsy ? none had seen her in the 

wood ! 
The monk ? a mendicant in search of food 1 

At length the awful revelation came, 
Crushing at once his pride of birth and 

name ; 
The hopes his yearning bosom forward cast 
And the ancestral glories of the past, 
All fell together, crumbling in disgrace, 
A turret rent from battlement to base. 
His daughters talking in the dead of night 
In their own chamber, and without a light, 
Listening, as he was wont, he overheard, 
And learned the dreadful secret, word by 

word ; 



238 



TALES OF A WAYSIDE INN 



And hurrying from his castle, with a cry- 
He raised his hands to the unpitying sky, 
Repeating one dread word, till bush and 

tree 
Caught it, and shuddering answered, 

"Heresy!" 

Wrapped in his cloak, his hat drawn o'er 

his face, 
Now hurrying forward, now with lingering 

pace, 
He walked all night the alleys of his park, 
With one unseen companion in the dark, 
The demon who within him lay in wait 
And by his presence turned his love to 

hate, 
Forever muttering in an undertone, 
" Kill ! kill ! and let the Lord find out his 



Upon the morrow, after early Mass, 
While yet the dew was glistening on the 

grass, 
And all the woods were musical with birds, 
The old Hidalgo, uttering fearful words, 
Walked homeward with the Priest, and in 

his room 
Summoned his trembling daughters to their 

doom. 
When questioned, with brief answers they 

replied, 
Nor when accused evaded or denied ; 
Expostulations, passionate appeals, 
All that the human heart most fears or 

feels, 
In vain the Priest with earnest voice 

essayed ; 
In vain the father threatened, wept, and 

prayed ; 
Until at last he said, with haughty mien, 
« The Holy Office, then, must intervene ! " 

And now the Grand Inquisitor of Spain, 
With all the fifty horsemen of his train, 
His awful name resounding, like the blast 
Of funeral trumpets, as he onward passed, 
Came to Valladolid, and there began 
To harry the rich Jews with fire and ban. 
To him the Hidalgo went, and at the gate 
Demanded audience on affairs of state, 
And in a secret chamber stood before 
A venerable graybeard of fourscore, 
Dressed in the hood and habit of a friar ; 
Out of his eyes flashed a consuming fire, 
And in his hand the mystic horn he held, 



Which poison and all noxious charms dis* 

pelled. 
He heard in silence the Hidalgo's tale, 
Then answered in a voice that made him 

quail : 
" Son of the Church ! when Abraham of old 
To sacrifice his only son was told, 
He did not pause to parley nor protest, 
But hastened to obey the Lord's behest. 
In him it was accounted righteousness ; 
The Holy Church expects of thee no less ! n 

A sacred frenzy seized the father's brain, 
And Mercy from that hour implored m 

vain. 
Ah ! who will e'er believe the words I say ? 
His daughters he accused, and the same 

day 
They both were cast into the dungeon's 

gloom, 
That dismal antechamber of the tomb, 
Arraigned, condemned, and sentenced to 

the flame, 
The secret torture and the public shame. 

Then to the Grand Inquisitor once more 
The Hidalgo went more eager than before, 
And said : " When Abraham offered up his 

son, 
He clave the wood wherewith it might be 

done. 
By his example taught, let me too bring 
Wood from the forest for my offering ! " 
And the deep voice, without a pause, re* 

plied : 
" Son of the Church ! by faith now justified, 
Complete thy sacrifice, even as thou wilt ; 
The Church absolves thy conscience from 

all guilt ! " 

Then this most wretched father went his 

way 
Into the woods, that round his castle lay, 
Where once his daughters in their chil&r 

hood played 
With their young mother in the sun and 

shade. 
Now all the leaves had fallen ; the branches 

bare 
Made a perpetual moaning in the air, 
And screaming from their eyries overhead 
The ravens sailed athwart the sky of lead, 
With his own hands he lopped the boughs 

and bound 
Fagots, that crackled with foreboding sound, 



INTERLUDE 



239 



And on his mules, caparisoned and gay 
With bells and tassels, sent them on their 
way. 

Then with his mind on one dark purpose 
bent, 

Again to the Inquisitor he went, 

And said : " Behold, the fagots I have 
brought, 

And now, lest my atonement be as naught, 

Grant me one more request, one last de- 
sire, — 

With my own hand to light the funeral 
fire!" 

And Torquemada answered from his seat, 

"Son of the Church ! Thine offering is 
complete ; 

Her servants through all ages shall not 
cease 

To magnify thy deed. Depart in peace ! " 

Upon the market-place, builded of stone 
The scaffold rose, whereon Death claimed 

his own. 
At the four corners, in stern attitude, 
Four statues of the Hebrew Prophets stood, 
Gazing with calm indifference in their 

eyes 
Upon this place of human sacrifice, 
Round which was gathering fast the eager 

crowd, 
With clamor of voices dissonant and loud, 
And every roof and window was alive 
With restless gazers, swarming like a hive. 

The church-bells tolled, the chant of monks 

drew near, 
Loud trumpets stammered, forth their notes 

of fear, 
A line of torches smoked along the street, 
There was a stir, a rush, a tramp of feet, 
And, with its banners floating in the air, 
Slowly the long procession crossed the 

square, 
And, to the statues of the Prophets bound, 
The victims stood, with fagots piled around. 
Then all the air a blast of trumpets shook, 
And louder sang the monks with bell and 

book, 
And the Hidalgo, lofty, stern, and proud, 
Lifted his torch, and, bursting through the 

crowd, 
Lighted in haste the fagots, and then fled, 
Lest those imploring eyes should strike him 

dead ! 



O pitiless skies ! why did your clouds re« 

tain 
For peasants' fields their floods of hoarded 

rain ? 
O pitiless earth ! why opened no abyss 
To bury in its chasm a crime like this ? 

That night, a mingled column of fire and 

smoke 
From the dark thickets of the forest broke, 
And, glaring o'er the landscape leagues 

away, 
Made all the fields and hamlets bright as 

day. 
Wrapped in a sheet of flame the castle 

blazed, 
And as the villagers in terror gazed, 
They saw the figure of that cruel knight 
Lean from a window in the turret's height, 
His ghastly face illumined with the glare, 
His hands upraised above his head in 

prayer, 
Till the floor sank beneath him, and he fell 
Down the black hollow of that burning 

well. 

Three centuries and more above his bones 
Have piled the oblivious years like funeral 

stones ; 
His name has perished with him, and no 

trace 
Remains on earth of his afflicted race ; 
But Torquemada's name, with clouds o'er* 

cast, 
Looms in the distant landscape of the Past, 
Like a burnt tower upon a blackened heath, 
Lit by the fires of burning woods beneath I 



INTERLUDE 

Thus closed the tale of guilt and gloom, 

That cast upon each listener's face 

Its shadow, and for some brief space 

Unbroken silence filled the room. 

The Jew was thoughtful and distressed ; 

Upon his memory thronged and pressed 

The persecution of his race, 

Their wrongs and sufferings and disgrace 

His head was sunk upon his breast, 

And from his eyes alternate came 

Flashes of wrath and tears of shame. 

The Student first the silence broke, 
As one who long has lain in wait, 



240 



TALES OF A WAYSIDE INN 



With purpose to retaliate, 

And thus he dealt the avenging stroke. 

" In such a company as this, 

A tale so tragic seems amiss, 

That by its terrible control 

O'ermasters and drags down the soul 

Into a fathomless abyss. 

The Italian Tales that you disdain, 

Some merry Night of Straparole, 

Or Machiavelli's Belphagor, 

Would cheer us and delight us more, 

Give greater pleasure and less pain 

Than your grim tragedies of Spain ! " 

And here the Poet raised his hand, 
With such entreaty and command, 
It stopped discussion at its birth, 
And said : " The story I shall tell 
Has meaning in it, if not mirth ; 
Listen, and hear what once befell 
The merry birds of Killingworth ! " 



THE POET'S TALE 

THE BIRDS OF KILLINGWORTH 

It was the season, when through all the 
land 
The merle and mavis build, and build- 
ing sing 
Those lovely lyrics, written by His hand, 
Whom Saxon Csedmon calls the Blithe- 
heart King ; 
When on the boughs the purple buds ex- 
pand, 
The banners of the vanguard of the 
_ Spring, 
And rivulets, rejoicing, rush and leap, 
And wave their fluttering signals from the 
steep. 

The robin and the bluebird, piping loud, 
Filled all the blossoming orchards with 
their glee ; 
The sparrows chirped as if they still were 
proud 
Their race in Holy Writ should men- 
tioned be •, 
And hungry crows, assembled in a crowd, 
Clamored their piteous prayer inces- 
santly, 
Knowing who hears the ravens cry, and said : 
'Give us, O Lord, this day, our daily 
bread ! " 



Across the Sound the birds of passage 
sailed, 
Speaking some unknown language 
strange and sweet 
Of tropic isle remote, and passing hailed 
The village with the cheers of all thei- 
fleet ; 
Or quarrelling together, laughed and 
railed 
Like foreign sailors, landed in the street 
Of seaport town, and with outlandish noise 
Of oaths and gibberish frightening girls 
and boys. 

Thus came the jocund Spring in Killing* 
worth, 
In fabulous days, some hundred years 
ago; 
And thrifty farmers, as they tilled the 
earth, 
Heard with alarm the cawing of the 
crow, 
That mingled with the universal mirth, 
Cassandra-like, prognosticating woe ; 
They shook their heads, and doomed with 

dreadful words 
To swift destruction the whole race of 
birds. 

And a town-meeting was convened straight- 
way 
To set a price upon the guilty heads 
Of these marauders, who, in lieu of pay, 
Levied black -mail upon the garden 
beds 
And cornfields, and beheld without dis- 
may 
The awful scarecrow, with his fluttering 
shreds ; 
The skeleton that waited at their feast, 
Whereby their sinful pleasure was in 
creased. 

Then from his house, a temple painted 
white, 
With fluted columns, and a roof of red, 
The Squire came forth, august and splen- 
did sight ! 
Slowly descending, with majestic tread, 
Three flights of steps, nor looking left nol 
right, 
Down the long street he walked, as one 
who said, 
" A town that boasts inhabitants like me 
Can have no lack of good society 1 " 



THE POET'S TALE 



241 



The Parson, too, appeared, a man austere, 
The instinct of whose nature was to 
kill; 
The wrath of God he preached from year 
to year, 
And read, with fervor, Edwards on the 
Will; 
His favorite pastime was to slay the deer 

In Summer on some Adirondac hill ; 
E'en now, while walking down the rural 

lane, 
He lopped the wayside lilies with his cane. 

From the Academy, whose belfry crowned 
The hill of Science with its vane of 
brass, 

Came the Preceptor, gazing idly round, 
Now at the clouds, and now at the green 
grass, 

And all absorbed in reveries profound 
Of fair Almira in the upper class, 

Who was, as in a sonnet he had said, 

As pure as water, and as good as bread. 

Ind next the Deacon issued from his door, 
In his voluminous neck-cloth, white as 
snow ; 
A. suit of sable bombazine he wore ; 
His form was ponderous, and his step 
was slow ; 
There never was so wise a man before ; 
He seemed the incarnate " Well, I told 
you so ! " 
And to perpetuate his great renown 
There was a street named after him in 
town. 

These came together in the new town-hall, 
With sundry farmers from the region 
round. 
The Squire presided, dignified and tall, 
His air impressive and his reasoning 
sound ; 
111 fared it with the birds, both great and 
small ; 
Hardly a friend in all that crowd they 
found, 
Qut enemies enough, who every one 
Charged them with all the crimes beneath 
the sun. 

t^hen they had ended, from his place 
apart 
Ro3e the Preeeptor, to redress the 
wrong, 



And, trembling like a steed before the 
start, 
Looked round bewildered on the expect- 
ant throng ; 

Then thought of fair Almira, and took 
heart 
To speak out what was in him, clear and 
strong, 

Alike regardless of their smile or frown, 

And quite determined not to be laughed 
down. 

" Plato, anticipating the Reviewers, 

From his Republic banished without pity 
The Poets ; in this little town of yours, 
You put to death, by means of a Com- 
mittee, 
The ballad-singers and the Troubadours, 
The street-musicians of the heavenly 
city, 
The birds, who make sweet music for us 

all 
In our dark hours, as David did for Saul. 

"The thrush that carols at the dawn of 
day 
From the green steeples of the piny 
wood ; 
The oriole in the elm ; the noisy jay, 

Jargoning like a foreigner at his food ; 
The bluebird balanced on some topmost 
spray, 
Flooding with melody the neighbor- 
hood ; 
Linnet and meadow-lark, and all the throng 
That dwell in nests, and have the gift of 
song. 

" You slay them all ! and wherefore ? for 
the gain 
Of a scant handful more or less c 
wheat, 
Or rye, or barley, or some other grain, 
Scratched up at random by industrious 
feet, 
Searching for worm or weevil after rain ! 

Or a few cherries, that are not so sweet 
As are the songs these uninvited guests 
Sing at their feast with comfortable 
breasts. 

" Do you ne'er think what wondrous beings 
these ? 
Do you ne'er think who made them, and 
who taught 



242 



TALES OF A WAYSIDE INN 



The dialect they speak, where melodies 

Alone are the interpreters of thought ? 
Whose household words are songs in many 
keys, 
Sweeter than instrument of man e'er 
caught ! 
Whose habitations in the tree-tops even 
Are half-way houses on the road to 
heaven ! 

(i Think, every morning when the sun peeps 
through 
The dim, leaf-latticed windows of the 
grove, 
How jubilant the happy birds renew 

Their old, melodious madrigals of love ! 
And when you think of this, remember 
too 
'T is always morning somewhere, and 
above 
The awakening continents, from shore to 

shore, 
Somewhere the birds are singing evermore. 

" Think of your woods and orchards without 
birds ! 
Of empty nests that cling to boughs and 
beams 
As in an idiot's brain remembered words 
Hang empty 'mid the cobwebs of his 
dreams ! 
Will bleat of flocks or bellowing of herds 
Make up for the lost music, when your 
teams 
Drag home the stingy harvest, and no 

more 
The feathered gleaners follow to your 
door? 

es What ! would you rather see the incessant 
stir 
Of insects in the windrows of the hay, 
And hear the locust and the grasshopper 
Their melancholy hurdy-gurdies play ? 
Is this more pleasant to you than the whir 
Of meadow-lark, and her sweet rounde- 
lay, 
Or twitter of little field-fares, as you take 
Your nooning in the shade of bush and 
brake ? 

" You call them thieves and pillagers ; but 
know, 
They are the winged wardens of your 
farms, 



Who from the cornfields drive the insidious 
foe, 
And from your harvests keep a hundred 
harms ; 
Even the blackest of them all, the crow, 
Renders good service as your man-at* 
arms, 
Crushing the beetle in his coat of mail, 
And crying havoc on the slug and snail. 

"How can I teach your children gentle^ 
ness, 
And mercy to the weak, and reverence 
For Life, which, in its weakness or excess. 

Is still a gleam of God's omnipotence, 
Or Death, which, seeming darkness, is no 
less 
The selfsame light, although averted 
hence, 
When by your laws, your actions, and your 

speech, 
You contradict the very things I teach ? " 

With this he closed ; and through the au- 
dience went • 
A murmur, like the rustle of dead 
leaves ; 
The farmers laughed and nodded, and some 
bent 
Their yellow heads together like their 
sheaves ; 
Men have no faith in fine-spun sentiment 
Who put their trust in bullocks and in 
beeves. 
The birds were doomed ; and, as the record 

shows, 
A bounty offered for the heads of crows. 

There was another audience out of reach. 
Who had no voice nor vote in making 
laws, 
But in the papers read his little speech* 
And crowned his modest temples with 
applause ; 
They made him conscious, each one more 
than each, 
He still was victor, vanquished in their 
cause. 
Sweetest of all the applause he won from 

thee, 
O fair Almira at the Academy ! 

And so the dreadful massacre began ; 
O'er fields and orchards, and o'er wood' 
land crests, 



FINALE 



243 



The ceaseless fusillade of terror ran. 

Dead fell the birds, with blood-stains on 
their breasts, 
Or wounded crept away from sight of 
man, 
Whde the young died of famine in their 
nests ; 
A slaughter to be told in groans, not words, 
The very St. Bartholomew of Birds ! 

The Summer came, and all the birds were 
dead ; 
The days were like hot coals ; the very 
ground 
Was burned to ashes ; in the orchards fed 

Myriads of caterpillars, and around 
The cultivated fields and garden beds 
Hosts of devouring insects crawled, and 
found 
No foe to check their march, till they had 

made 
The land a desert without leaf or shade. 

Devoured by worms, like Herod, was the 
town, 
Because, like Herod, it had ruthlessly 
Slaughtered the Innocents. From the trees 
spun down 
The canker-worms upon the passers-by, 
Upon each woman's bonnet, shawl, and 
gown, 
Who shook them off with just a little 

Cry ; 
They were the terror of each favorite walk, 

The endless theme of all the village talk. 

The farmers grew impatient, but a few 
Confessed their error, and would not 
complain, 
For after all, the best thing one can do 

When it is raining, is to let it rain. 
Then they repealed the law, although they 
knew 
It would not call the dead to life again ; 
As school-boys, finding their mistake too 

late, 
Draw a wet sponge across the accusing 
slate. 

That year in Killingworth the Autumn 
came 
Without the light of his majestic look, 
The wonder of the falling tongues of flame, 
The illumined pages of his Doom's-Day 
book. 



A few lost leaves blushed crimson with 
their shame, 
And drowned themselves despairing in 
the brook, 

While the wild wind went moaning every- 
where, 

Lamenting the dead children of the air ! 

But the next Spring a stranger sight was 
seen, 
A sight that never yet by bard was sung 
As great a wonder as it would have been 

If some dumb animal had found a tongue ! 
A wagon, overarched with evergreen, 
Upon whose boughs were wicker cages 
hung, 
All full of singing birds, came down the 

street, 
Filling the air with music wild and sweet. 

From all the country round these birds 
were brought, 
By order of the town, with anxious quest, 
And, loosened from their wicker prisons, 
sought 
In woods and fields the places they loved 
best, 
Singing loud canticles, which many thought 
Were satires to the authorities addressed, 
While others, listening in green lanes, 

averred 
Such lovely music never had been heard ! 

But blither still and louder carolled they 
Upon the morrow, for they seemed to 
know 

It was the fair Almira's wedding-day, 
And everywhere, around, above, below, 

When the Preceptor bore his bride away, 
Their songs burst forth in joyous over- 
flow, 

And a new heaven bent over a new earth 

Amid the sunny farms of Killingworth. 



FINALE 

The hour was late ; the fire burned low, 
The Landlord's eyes were closed in sleep, 
And near the story's end a deep, 
Sonorous sound at times was heard, 
As when the distant bagpipes blow. 
At this all laughed ; the Landlord stirred. 
As one awaking from a s wound, 
And, gazing anxiously around. 



244 



TALES OF A WAYSIDE INN 



Protested that be had not slept, 
But only shut his eyes, and kept 
His ears attentive to each word- 
Then all arose, and said " Good Night." 
Alone remained the drowsy Squire 
To rake the embers of the fire, 
And quench the waning parlor light ; 
While from the windows, here and there, 
The scattered lamps a moment gleamed, 
And the illumined hostel seemed 
The constellation of the Bear, 
Downward, athwart the misty air, 
Sinking and setting toward the sun. 
Far off the village clock struck one. 



PART SECOND 
PRELUDE 

A COLD, uninterrupted rain, 

That washed each southern window-pane, 

And made a river of the road ; 

A sea of mist that overflowed 

The house, the barns, the gilded vane, 

And drowned the upland and the plain, 

Through which the oak-trees, broad and 

high, 
Like phantom ships went drifting by ; 
And, hidden behind a watery screen, 
The sun unseen, or only seen 
As a faint pallor in the sky ; — 
Thus cold and colorless and gray, 
The morn of that autumnal day, 
As if reluctant to begin, 
Dawned on the silent Sudbury Inn, 
And all the guests that in it lay. 

Full late they slept. They did not hear 
The challenge of Sir Chanticleer, 
Who on the empty threshing-floor, 
Disdainful of the rain outside, 
Was strutting with a martial stride, 
As if upon his thigh he wore 
The famous broadsword of the Squire, 
And said, " Behold me, and admire ! " 

Only the Poet seemed to hear, 

In drowse or dream, more near and near 

Across the border-land of sleep, 

The blowing of a blithesome horn, 

That laughed the dismal day to scorn ; 

A splash of hoofs and rush of wheels 

Through sand and mire like stranding keels, 



As from the road with sudden sweep 
The Mail drove up the little steep, 
And stopped beside the tavern door ; 
A moment stopped, and then again 
With crack of whip and bark of dog 
Plunged forward through the sea of fogj 
And all was silent as before, — 
All silent save the dripping rain. 

Then one by one the guests came down, 
And greeted with a smile the Squire, 
Who sat before the parlor fire, 
Reading the paper fresh from town. 
First the Sicilian, like a bird, 
Before his form appeared, was heard 
Whistling and singing down the stair ; 
Then came the Student, with a look 
As placid as a meadow-brook ; 
The Theologian, still perplexed 
With thoughts of this world and the nexif 
The Poet then, as one who seems 
Walking in visions and in dreams ; 
Then the Musician, like a fair 
Hyperion from whose golden hair 
The radiance of the morning streams ; 
And last the aromatic Jew 
Of Alicant, who, as he threw 
The door wide open, on the air 
Breathed round about him a perfume 
Of damask roses in full bloom, 
Making a garden of the room. 

The breakfast ended, each pursued 
The promptings of his various mood | 
Beside the fire in silence smoked 
The taciturn, impassive Jew, 
Lost in a pleasant revery ; 
While, by his gravity provoked, 
His portrait the Sicilian drew, 
And wrote beneath it " Edrehi, 
At the Red Horse in Sudbury." 

By far the busiest of them all, 

The Theologian in the hall 

Was feeding robins in a cage, — 

Two corpulent and lazy birds, 

Vagrants and pilferers at best, 

If one might trust the hostler's words, 

Chief instrument of their arrest ; 

Two poets of the Golden Age, 

Heirs of a boundless heritage 

Of fields and orchards, east and west, 

And sunshine of long summer days, 

Though outlawed now and dispossessed !«*J\ 

Such was the Theologian's phrase. 






THE SICILIAN'S TALE 



?4S 



Meanwhile the Student held discourse 

With the Musician, on the source 

Of all the legendary lore 

Among the nations, scattered wide 

Like silt and seaweed by the force 

And fluctuation of the tide ; 

The tale repeated o'er and o'er, 

With change of place and change of name, 

Disguised, transformed, and yet the same 

We *ve heard a hundred times before. 

The Poet at the window mused, 

And saw, as in a dream confused, 

The countenance of the Sun, discrowned, 

And haggard with a pale despair, 

And saw the cloud-rack trail and drift 

Before it, and the trees uplift 

Their leafless branches, and the air 

Filled with the arrows of the rain, 

And heard amid the mist below, 

Like voices of distress and pain, 

That haunt the thoughts of men insane, 

The fateful ca wings of the crow. 

Then down the road, with mud besprent, 
And drenched with rain from head to hoof, 
The rain-drops dripping from his mane 
And tail as from a pent-house roof, 
A jaded horse, his head down bent, 
Passed slowly, limping as he went. 

The young Sicilian — who had grown 
Impatient longer to abide 
A prisoner, greatly mortified 
To see completely overthrown 
His plans for angling in the brook, 
And, leaning o'er the bridge of stone, 
To watch the speckled trout glide by, 
And float through the inverted sky, 
Still round and round the baited hook — 
Now paced the room with rapid stride, 
And, pausing at the Poet's side, 
Looked forth, and saw the wretched steed, 
And said : " Alas for human greed, 
That with cold hand and stony eye 
Thus turns an old friend out to die, 
Or beg his food from gate to gate ! 
This brings a tale into my mind, 
Which, if you are not disinclined 
To listen, I will now relate." 

All gave assent ; all wished to hear, 
Not without many a jest and jeer, 
The story of a spavined steed ; 
And even the Student with the rest 



Put in his pleasant little jest 
Out of Malherbe, that Pegasus 
Is but a horse that with all speed 
Bears poets to the hospital ; 
While the Sicilian, self-possessed, 
After a moment's interval 
Began his simple story thus. 



THE SICILIAN'S TALE 

THE BELL OF ATRI 

At Atri in Abruzzo, a small town 
Of ancient Roman date, but scant renown, 
One of those little places that have run 
Half up the hill, beneath a blazing sun, 
And then sat down to rest, as if to say, 
"I climb no farther upward, come what 

may," — 
The Re Giovanni, now unknown to fame, 
So many monarchs since have borne the 

name, 
Had a great bell hung in the market-place, 
Beneath a roof, projecting some small space 
By way of shelter from the sun and rain. 
Then rode he through the streets with all 

his train, 
And, with the blast of trumpets loud and 

long, 
Made proclamation, that whene T t wrong 
Was done to any man, he should but ring 
The great bell in the square, and he, the 

King, 
Would cause the Syndic to decide thereon. 
Such was the proclamation of King John. 

How swift the happy days in Atri sped, 
What wrongs were righted, need not here 

be said. 
Suffice it that, as all things must decay, 
The hempen rope at length was worn away, 
Unravelled at the end, and, strand by 

strand, 
Loosened and wasted in the ringer's hand, 
Till one, who noted this in passing by, 
Mended the rope with braids of briony, 
So that the leaves and tendrils of the vine 
Hung like a votive garland at a shrine. 

By chance it happened that in Atri dwelt 
A knight, with spur on heel and sword in 

belt, 
Who loved to hunt the wild-boar in the 

woods, 



246 



TALES OF A WAYSIDE INN 



Who loved his falcons with their crimson 

hoods, 
Who loved his hounds and horses, and all 

sports 
And prodigalities of camps and courts ; — 
Loved, or had loved them ; for at last, 

grown old, 
His only passion was the love of gold. 

He sold his horses, sold his hawks and 

hounds, 
Rented his vineyards and his garden- 
grounds, 
Kept but one steed, his favorite steed of 

all, 
To starve and shiver in a naked stall, 
And day by day sat brooding in his chair, 
Devising plans how best to hoard and spare. 

At length he said : " What is the use or 

need 
To keep at my own cost this lazy steed, 
Eating his head off in my stables here, 
When rents are low and provender is dear ? 
Let him go feed upon the public ways ; 
I want him only for the holidays." 
So the old steed was turned into the heat 
Of the long, lonely, silent, shadeless street ; 
And wandered in suburban lanes forlorn, 
Barked at by dogs, and torn by brier and 

thorn. 

One afternoon, as in that sultry clime 
It is the custom in the summer time, 
With bolted doors and window-shutters 

closed, 
The inhabitants of Atri slept or dozed ; 
When suddenly upon their senses fell 
The loud alarm of the accusing bell ! 
The Syndic started from his deep repose, 
Turned on his couch, and listened, and then 

rose 
And donned his robes, and with reluctant 

pace 
Went panting forth into the market-place, 
Where the great bell upon its cross-beams 

swung, 
Reiterating with persistent tongue, 
In half-articulate jargon, the old song : 
" Some one hath done a wrong, hath done 



a wrong 



But ere he reached the belfry's light arcade 
He saw, or thought he saw, beneath its 
shade, 



No shape of human form of woman born, 
But a poor steed dejected and forlorn, 
Who with uplifted head and eager eye 
Was tugging at the vines of briony. 
" Domeneddio ! " cried the Syndic straight, 
" This is the Knight of Atri's steed of state ! 
He calls for justice, being sore distressed, 
And pleads his cause as loudly as the best. 5 ' 

Meanwhile from street and lane a noisy 

crowd 
Had rolled together like a summer cloud, 
And told the story of the wretched beast 
In five-and-twenty different ways at least, 
With much gesticulation and appeal 
To heathen gods, in their excessive zeal. 
The Knight was called and questioned ; io 

reply 
Did not confess the fact, did not deny ; 
Treated the matter as a pleasant jest, 
And set at naught the Syndic and the rest, 
Maintaining, in an angry undertone, 
That he should do what pleased him with 

his own. 

And thereupon the Syndic gravely read 
The proclamation of the King ; then said : 
" Pride goeth forth on horseback grand and 

But cometh back on foot, and begs its way J 
Fame is the fragrance of heroic deeds, 
Of flowers of chivalry and not of weeds ! 
These are familiar proverbs ; but I fear 
They never yet have reached your knightly 

ear. 
What fair renown, what honor, what re* 

pute 
Can come to you from starving this poo£ 

brute ? 
He who serves well and speaks not, merits 

more 
Than they who clamor loudest at the door. 
Therefore the law decrees that as this steed 
Served you in youth, henceforth you shall 

take heed 
To comfort his old age, and to provide 
Shelter in stall, and food and field beside." 

The Knight withdrew abashed ; the people 

all 
Led home the steed in triumph to his stall. 
The King heard and approved, and laughed 

in glee, 
And cried aloud : " Right well it pleasetb 

me ! 



THE SPANISH JEW'S TALE 



24? 



Church-bells at best but ring us to the 

door ; 
But go not in to mass ; my bell doth more : 
It cometh into court and pleads the cause 
Of creatures dumb and unknown to the 

laws ; 
And this shall make, in every Christian 

clime, 
The Bell of Atri famous for all time." 



INTERLUDE 

" Yes, well your story pleads the cause 

Of those dumb mouths that have no speech, 

Only a cry from each to each 

In its own kind, with its own laws ; 

Something that is beyond the reach 

Of human power to learn or teach, — 

An inarticulate moan of pain, 

Like the immeasurable main 

Breaking upon an unknown beach." 

Thus spake the Poet with a sigh ; 
Then added, with impassioned cry, 
As one who feels the words he speaks, 
The color flushing in his cheeks, 
The fervor burning in his eye : 
" Among the noblest in the land, 
Though he may count himself the least, 
That man I honor and revere 

1 Who without favor, without fear, 
In the great city dares to stand 
The friend of every friendless beast, 
And tames with his unflinching hand 
The brutes that wear our form and face, 
The were-wolves of the human race ! " 
Then paused, and waited with a frown, 

1 Like some old champion of romance, 
Who, having thrown his gauntlet down, 

; Expectant leans upon his lance ; 
But neither Knight nor Squire is found 
To raise the gauntlet from the ground, 
A.nd try with him the battle's chance. 

** Wake from your dreams, O Edrehi ! 

Or dreaming speak to us, and make 

A feint of being half awake, 

And tell us what your dreams may be. 

Out of the hazy atmosphere 

Of cloud-land deign to reappear 

Among us in this Wayside Inn ; 

Tell us what visions and what scenes 

Illuminate the dark ravines 

In which you grope your way. Begin ! " 



Thus the Sicilian spake. The Jew 
Made no reply, but only smiled, 
As men unto a wayward child, 
Not knowing what to answer, do. 
As from a cavern's mouth, o'ergrowft 
With moss and intertangled vines, 
A streamlet leaps into the light 
And murmurs over root and stone 
In a melodious undertone ; 
Or as amid the noonday night 
Of sombre and wind-haunted pines 
There runs a sound as of the sea ; 
So from his bearded lips there came 
A melody without a name, 
A song, a tale, a history, 
Or whatsoever it may be, 
Writ and recorded in these lines. 



THE SPANISH JEW'S TALE 

KAMBALU 

Into the city of Kambalu, 
By the road that leadeth to Ispahan, 
At the head of his dusty caravan, 
Laden with treasure from realms afar, 
Baldacca and Kelat and Kandahar, 
Rode the great captain Alau. 

The Khan from his palace-window gazed, 
And saw in the thronging street beneath, 
In the light of the setting sun, that blazed 
Through the clouds of dust by the caravat 

raised, 
The flash of harness and jewelled sheath, 
And the shining scimitars of the guard, 
And the weary camels that bared theii 

teeth, 
As they passed and passed through the 

gates unbarred 
Into the shade of the palace-yard. 

Thus into the city of Kambalu 

Rode the great captain Alau ; 

And he stood before the Khan, and said : 

" The enemies of my lord are dead ; 

All the Kalifs of all the West 

Bow and obey thy least behest ; 

The plains are dark with the mulberry 

trees, 
The weavers are busy in Samarcand, 
The miners are sifting the golden sand, 
The divers plunging for pearls in the seas. 
And peace and plenty are in the land. 



2 4 8 



TALES OF A WAYSIDE INN 



" Baldacca's Kalif, and he alone, 
Rose in revolt against thy throne : 
His treasures are at thy palace-door, 
With the swords and the shawls and the 

jewels he wore ; 
His body is dust o'er the desert blown. 

" A mile outside of Baldacca's gate 

I left my forces to lie in wait, 

Concealed by forests and hillocks of sand, 

And forward dashed with a handful of 
men, 

To lure the old tiger from his den 

Into the ambush I had planned. 

Ere we reached the town the alarm was 
spread, 

For we heard the sound of gongs from 
within ; 

And with clash of cymbals and warlike din 

The gates swung wide ; and we turned and 
fled; 

And the garrison sallied forth and pur- 
sued, 

With the gray old Kalif at their head, 

And above them the banner of Mohammed: 

So we snared them all, and the town was 
subdued. 

" As in at the gate we rode, behold, 
A tower that is called the Tower of Gold ! 
For there the Kalif had hidden his wealth, 
Heaped and hoarded and piled on high, 
Like sacks of wheat in a granary ; 
And thither the miser crept by stealth 
To feel of the gold that gave him health, 
And to gaze and gloat with his hungry 

eye 
On jewels that gleamed like a glow-worm's 

spark, 
Or the eyes of a panther in the dark. 

" I said to the Kalif : « Thou art old, 

Thou hast no need of so much gold. 

Thou shouldst not have heaped and hidden 

it here, 
Till the breath of battle was hot and near, 
But have sown through the land these use- 
less hoards 
To spring into shining blades of swords, 
And keep thine honor sweet and clear. 
These grains of gold are not grains of 

wheat ; 
These bars of silver thou canst not eat ; 
These jewels and pearls and precious stones 
Cannot cure the aches in thy bones, 



Nor keep the feet of Death one hour 
From climbing the stairways of thy tower !' 

" Then into his dungeon I locked the drone,. 
And left him to feed there all alone 
In the honey-cells of his golden hive ; 
Never a prayer, nor a cry, nor a groan 
Was heard from those massive walls of 

stone, 
Nor again was the Kalif seen alive ! 

" When at last we unlocked the door, 

We found him dead upon the floor ; 

The rings had dropped from his withered 

hands, 
His teetn were like bones in the desert 

sands : 
Still clutching his treasure he had died ; 
And as he lay there, he appeared 
A statue of gold with a silver beard, 
His arms outstretched as if crucified." 

This is the story, strange and true, 
That the great captain Alau 
Told to his brother the Tartar Khan, 
When he rode that day into Kambalo 
By the road that leadeth to Ispahan. 



INTERLUDE 

" I thought before your tale began, 
The Student murmured, " we should have 
Some legend written by Judah Rav 
In his Gemara of Babylon ; 
Or something from the Gulistan, — 
The tale of the Cazy of Hamadan, 
Or of that King of Khorasan 
Who saw in dreams the eyes of one 
That had a hundred years been dead 
Still moving restless in his head, 
Undimmed, and gleaming with the lust 
Of power, though all the rest was dust* 






" But lo ! your glittering caravan 
On the road that leadeth to Ispahan 
Hath led us farther to the East 
Into the regions of Cathay. 
Spite of your Kalif and his gold, 
Pleasant has been the tale you told, 
And full of color ; that at least 
No one will question or gainsay. 
And yet on such a dismal day 
We need a merrier tale to clear 
The dark and heavy atmosphere. 



THE STUDENT'S TALE 



24$ 



So listen, Lordlings, while I tell, 
Without a preface, what befell 
A simple cobbler, in the year — 
No matter ; it was long ago ; 
And that is all we need to know." 



THE STUDENT'S TALE 

THE COBBLER OF HAGENAU 

I trust that somewhere and somehow 
You all have heard of Hagenau, 
A quiet, quaint, and ancient town 
Among the green Alsatian hills, 
A place of valleys, streams, and mills, 
Where JBarbarossa's castle, brown 
With rust of centuries, still looks down 
On the broad, drowsy land below, — 
On shadowy forests filled with game, 
And the blue river winding slow 
Through meadows, where the hedges grow 
That give this little town its name. 

It happened in the good old times, 
While yet the Master-singers filled 
The noisy workshop and the guild 
With various melodies and rhymes, 
That here in Hagenau there dwelt 
A cobbler, — one who loved debate, 
And, arguing from a postulate, 
Would say what others only felt ; 
A man of forecast and of thrift, 
And of a shrewd and careful mind 
In this world's business, but inclined 
Somewhat to let the next world drift. 

Hans Sachs with vast delight he read, 

And Regenbogen's rhymes of love, 

For their poetic fame had spread 

Even to the town of Hagenau ; 

And some Quick Melody of the Plough, 

Or Double Harmony of the Dove 

Was always running in his head. 

He kept, moreover, at his side, 

Among his leathers and his tools, 

Reynard the Fox, the Ship of Fools, 

Or Eulenspiegel, open wide ; 

With these he was much edified : 

He thought them wiser than the Schools. 

His good wife, full of godly fear, 
Liked not these worldly themes to hear; 
The Psalter was her book of songs ; 
Tlie only music to her ear 



Was that which to the Church belongs, 
When the loud choir on Sunday chanted, 
And the two angels carved in wood, 
That by the windy organ stood, 
Blew on their trumpets loud and clear, 
And all the echoes, far and near, 
Gibbered as if the church were haunted 

Outside his door, one afternoon, 
This humble votary of the muse 
Sat in the narrow strip of shade 
By a projecting cornice made, 
Mending the Burgomaster's shoes, 
And singing a familiar tune : — 

" Our ingress into the world 

Was naked and bare ; 
Our progress through the world 

Is trouble and care ; 
Our egress from the world 

Will be nobody knows where : 
But if we do well here 

We shall do well there ; 
And I could tell you no more, 

Should I preach a whole year ! '* 

Thus sang the cobbler at his work ; 
And with his gestures marked the time, 
Closing together with a jerk 
Of his waxed thread the stitch and rhyme. 

Meanwhile his quiet little dame 

Was leaning o'er the window-sill, 

Eager, excited, but mouse-still, 

Gazing impatiently to see 

What the great throng of folk might be 

That onward in procession came, 

Along the unfrequented street, 

With horns that blew, and drums thai 

beat, 
And banners flying, and the flame 
Of tapers, and, at times, the sweet 
Voices of nuns ; and as they sang 
Suddenly all the church-bells rang. 

In a gay coach, above the crowd, 
There sat a monk in ample hood, 
Who with his right hand held aloft 
A red and ponderous cross of wood, 
To which at times he meekly bowed. 
In front three horsemen rode, and oft, 
With voice and air importunate, 
A boisterous herald cried aloud : 
" The grace of God is at your gate ! " 
So onward to the church they passed. 



250 



TALES OF A WAYSIDE INN 



The cobbler slowly turned his last, 
And, wagging his sagacious head, 
Unto his kneeling housewife said : 
" 'T is the monk Tetzel. I have heard 
The cawings of that reverend bird. 
Don't let him cheat you of your gold ; 
Indulgence is not bought and sold." 

ihe church of Hagenau, that night, 

Was full of people, full of light ; 

An odor of incense filled the air, 

The priest intoned, the organ groaned 

Its inarticulate despair ; 

The candles on the altar blazed, 

And full in front of it upraised 

The red cross stood against the glare. 

Below, upon the altar-rail 

Indulgences were set to sale, 

Like ballads at a country fair. 

A heavy strong-box, iron-bound 

And carved with many a quaint device, 

Received, with a melodious sound, 

The coin that purchased Paradise. 

Then from the pulpit overhead, 

Tetzel the monk, with fiery glow, 

Thundered upon the crowd below. 

" Good people all, draw near ! " he said ; 

" Purchase these letters, signed and sealed, 

By which all sins, though unrevealed 

And unrepented, are forgiven ! 

Count but the gain, count not the loss ! 

Your gold and silver are but dross, 

And yet they pave the way to heaven. 

I hear your mothers and your sires 

Cry from their purgatorial fires, 

And will ye not their ransom pay ? 

senseless people ! when the gate 
Of heaven is open, will ye wait ? 
Will ye not enter in to-day ? 
To-morrow it will be too late ; 

1 shall be gone upon my way. 

Make haste ! bring money while ye may ! " 

The women shuddered, and turned pale ; 
Allured by hope or driven by fear, 
With many a sob and many a tear, 
All crowded to the altar-rail. 
Pieces of silver and of gold 
Into the tinkling strong-box fell 
Like pebbles dropped into a well ; 
And soon the ballads were all sold. 
The cobbler's wife among the rest 
Slipped into the capacious chest 
A golden florin ; then withdrew, 



Hiding the paper in her breast ; 

And homeward through the darkness went 

Comforted, quieted, content ; 

She did not walk, she rather flew, 

A dove that settles to her nest, 

When some appalling bird of prey 

That scared her has been driven away. 

The days went by, the monk was gone, 

The summer passed, the winter came ; 

Though seasons changed, yet still the same 

The daily round of life went on ; 

The daily round of household care, 

The narrow life of toil and prayer. 

But in her heart the cobbler's dame 

Had now a treasure beyond price, 

A secret joy without a name, 

The certainty of Paradise. 

Alas, alas ! Dust unto dust ! 

Before the winter wore away, 

Her body in the churchyard lay, 

Her patient soul was with the Just ! 

After her death, among the things 

That even the poor preserve with care, * 

Some little trinkets and cheap rings, 

A locket with her mother's hair, 

Her wedding gown, the faded flowers 

She wore upon her wedding day, — 

Among these memories of past hours, 

That so much of the heart reveal, 

Carefully kept and put away, 

The Letter of Indulgence lay 

Folded, with signature and seal. 






Meanwhile the Priest, aggrieved and 

pained, 
Waited and wondered that no word 
Of mass or requiem he heard, 
As by the Holy Church ordained : 
Then to the Magistrate complained, 
That as this woman had been dead 
A week or more, and no mass said, 
It was rank heresy, or at least 
Contempt of Church ; thus said the Priest j 
And straight the cobbler was arraigned. 

He came, confiding in his cause, 
But rather doubtful of the laws. 
The Justice from his elbow-chair 
Gave him a look that seemed to say i 
" Thou standest before a Magistrate, 
Therefore do not prevaricate ! " 
Then asked him in a business way, 
Kindly but cold : " Is thy wife dead ? n 
The cobbler meekly bowed his iiead , 



i' 



INTERLUDE 



25* 



•* She is," came struggling from his throat 

Scarce audibly. The Justice wrote 

The words down in a book, and then 

Continued, as he raised his pen ; 

" She is ; and hath a mass been said 

For the salvation of her soul ? 

Come, speak the truth ! confess the whole ! " 

The cobbler without pause replied : 

" Of mass or prayer there was no need ; 

For at the moment when she died 

Her soul was with the glorified ! " 

And from his pocket with all speed 

He drew the priestly title-deed, 

And prayed the Justice he would read. 

The Justice read, amused, amazed ; 
And as he read his mirth increased ; 
At times his shaggy brows he raised, 
Now wondering at the cobbler gazed, 
Now archly at the angry Priest. 
" From all excesses, sins, and crimes 
Thou hast committed in past times 
Thee I absolve ! And furthermore, 
Purified from all earthly taints, 
To the communion of the Saints 
And to the sacraments restore ! 
All stains of weakness, and all trace 
Of shame and censure I efface ; 
Remife the pains thou shouldst endure, 
And make thee innocent and pure, 
So that in dying, unto thee 
The gates of heaven shall open be ! 
Though long thou livest, yet this grace 
Until the moment of thy death 
Unchangeable continueth ! " 

Then said he to the Priest : " I find 
This document is duly signed 
Brother John Tetzel, bis own hand. 
At all tribunals in the land 
In evidence it may be used ; 
Therefore acquitted is the accused." 
Then to the cobbler turned : " My friend, 
Pray tell me, didst thou ever read 
Reynard the Fox ? " — "Oh yes, in- 
deed!"— 
" I thought so. Don't forget the end." 



INTERLUDE 

" What was the end ? I am ashamed 
Not to remember Reynard's fate ; 
E have not read the book of late ; 
Was he not hanged ?" the Poet said. 



The Student gravely shook his head, 

And answered : " You exaggerate. 

There was a tournament proclaimed, 

And Reynard fought with Isegrim 

The Wolf, and having vanquished him, 

Rose to high honor in the State, 

And Keeper of the Seals was named ! " 

At this the gay Sicilian laughed : 

" Fight fire with fire, and craft witSf 

craft ; 
Successful cunning seems to be 
The moral of your tale," said he. 
" Mine had a better, and the Jew's 
Had none at all, that I could see ; 
His aim was only to amuse." 

Meanwhile from out its ebon case 

His violin the Minstrel drew, 

And having tuned its strings anew, 

Now held it close in his embrace, 

And poising in his outstretched hand 

The bow, like a magician's wand, 

He paused, and said, with beaming face; 

" Last night my story was too long ; 

To-day I give you but a song, 

An old tradition of the North ; 

But first, to put you in the mood, 

I will a little while prelude, 

And from this instrument draw forth 

Something by way of overture." 

He played ; at first the tones were pure 

And tender as a summer night, 

The full moon climbing to her height, 

The sob and ripple of the seas, 

The flapping of an idle sail ; 

And then by sudden and sharp degrees 

The multiplied, wild harmonies 

Freshened and burst into a gale ; 

A tempest howling through the dark, 

A crash as of some shipwrecked bark* 

A loud and melancholy wail. 

Such was the prelude to the tale 
Told by the Minstrel ; and at times 
He paused amid its varying rhymes, 
And at each pause again broke in 
The music of his violin, 
With tones of sweetness or of fear, 
Movements of trouble or of calm, 
Creating their own atmosphere ; 
As sitting in a church we hear 
Between the verses of the psalm 
The organ playing soft and clear, 
Or thundering on the startled ear. 



*5* 



TALES OF A WAYSIDE INN 



THE MUSICIAN'S TALE 

THE BALLAD OF CARMILHAN 

I 

At Stralsund, by the Baltic Sea, 

Withiu the sandy bar, 
At sunset of a summer's day, 
Ready for sea, at anchor lay 

The good ship Valdemar. 

The sunbeams danced upon the waves, 

And played along her side ; 
And through the cabin windows streamed 
In ripples of golden light, that seemed 

The ripple of the tide. 

There sat the captain with his friends, 

Old skippers brown and hale, 
Who smoked and grumbled o'er their 

grog, 
And talked of iceberg aud of fog, 

Of calm and storm and gale. 

And one was spinning a sailor's yarn 

About Klaboterman, 
The Kobold of the sea ; a spright 
Invisible to mortal sight, 

Who o'er the rigging ran. 

Sometimes he hammered in the hold, 

Sometimes upon the mast, 
Sometimes abeam, sometimes abaft, 
Or at the bows he sang and laughed, 

And made all tight and fast. 

He helped the sailors at their work, 

And toiled with jovial din ; 
He helped them hoist and reef the sails, 
He helped them stow the casks and bales, 

And heave the anchor in. 

But woe unto the lazy louts, 

The idlers of the crew ; 
Them to torment was his delight, 
And worry them by day and night, 

And pinch them black and blue. 

And woe to him whose mortal eyes 

Klaboterman behold. 
It is a certain sign of death ! — 
The cabin-boy here held his breath, 

He felt his blood run cold. 



The jolly skipper paused awhile, 

And then again began ; 
" There is a Spectre Ship," quoth he, 
" A ship of the Dead that sails the sea, 

And is called the Carmilhau. 

" A ghostly ship, with a ghostly crew, 

In tempests she appears ; 
And before the gale, or against the gale, 
She sails without a rag of sail, 

Without a helmsman steers. 

" She haunts the Atlantic north and south, 

But mostly the mid-sea, 
Where three great rocks rise bleak and 

bare 
Like furnace chimneys in the air, 

And are called the Chimneys Three. 



" And ill betide the luckless ship 

That meets the Carmilhan ; 

Over her decks the seas will leap, 

She must go down into the deep, 

And perish mouse and man." 






The captain of the Valdemar 
Laughed loud with merry heart. 

" I should like to see this ship," said he ; 

" I should like to find these Chimneys Three 
That are marked down in the chart. 

" I have sailed right over the spot," he said, 

" With a good stiff breeze behind, 
When the sea was blue, and the sky was 

clear, — 
You can follow my course by these pinholes 
here, — 
And never a rock could find." 

And then he swore a dreadful oath, 

He swore by the Kingdoms Three, 
That, should he meet the Carmilhan, 
He would run her down, although he ran 
Right into Eternity ! 

All this, while passing to and fro, 

The cabin-boy had heard ; 
He lingered at the door to hear, 
And drank in all with greedy ear, 

And pondered every word. 

He was a simple country lad, 
But of a roving mind. 



THE MUSICIAN'S TALE 



2& 



B Oh, it must be like heaven," thought he, 
'* Those far-off foreign lands to see, 
And fortune seek and find ! " 

But in the fo'castle, when he heard 

The mariners blaspheme, 
He thought of home, he thought of God, 
And his mother under the churchyard 
sod, 

And wished it were a dream. 

One friend on board that ship had he ; 

'T was the Klaboterman, 
Who saw the Bible in his chest, 
And made a sign upon his breast, 

All evil things to ban. 



Ill 



fhe cabin windows have grown blank 

As .eyeballs of the dead ; 
No more the glancing sunbeams burn 
On the gilt letters of the stern, 

But on the figure-head ; 

On Valdemar Victorious, 

Who looketh with disdain 
To see his image in the tide 
Dismembered float from side to side, 

And reunite again. 

I It is the wind," those skippers said, 

" That swings the vessel so ; 
It is the wind ; it freshens fast, 
'T is time to say farewell at last, 

*T is time for us to go." 

They shook the captain by the hand, 

" Good luck ! good luck ! " they cried ; 
Each face was like the setting- sun, 
As, broad and red, they one by one 
Went o'er the vessel's side. 

The sun went down, the full moon rose, 

Serene o'er field and flood ; 
And all the winding creeks and bays 
And broad sea-meadows seemed ablaze, 

The sky was red as blood. 

The southwest wind blew fresh and fair, 

As fair as wind could be ; 
Bound for Odessa, o'er the bar, 
With all sail set, the Valdemar 

Went proudly out to sea. 



The lovely moon climbs up the sky 

As one who walks in dreams ; 
A tower of marble in her light, 
A wall of black, a wall of white, 
The stately vessel seems. 

Low down upon the sandy coast 

The lights begin to burn ; 
And now, uplifted high in air, 
They kindle with a fiercer glare, 
And now drop far astern. 

The dawn appears, the land is gone, 

The sea is all around ; 
Then on each hand low hills of sand 
Emerge and form another land ; 

She steereth through the Sound. 

Through Kattegat and Skager-rack 

She flitteth like a ghost ; 
By day and night, by night and day, 
She bounds, she flies upon her way 

Along the English coast. 

Cape Finisterre is drawing near, 

Cape Finisterre is past ; 
Into the open ocean stream 
She floats, the vision of a dream 

Too beautiful to last. 

Suns rise and set, and rise, and yet 

There is no land in sight ; 
The liquid planets overhead 
Burn brighter now the moon is dead, 
And longer stays the night. 



IV 



And now along the horizon's edge 

Mountains of cloud uprose, 
Black as with forests underneath, 
Above, their sharp and jagged teeth 

Were white as drifted snows. 

Unseen behind them sank the sun, 

But flushed each snowy peak 
A little while with rosy light, 
That faded slowly from the sight 

As blushes from the cheek. 

Black grew the sky, — all black, all black, 
The clouds were everywhere ; 

There was a feeling of suspense 

In nature, a mysterious sense 
Of terror in the air. 



254 



TALES OF A WAYSIDE INN 



And all on board the Valdemar 

Was still as still could be ; 
Save when the dismal ship-bell tolled, 
As ever and anon she rolled, 

And lurched into the sea. 

The captain up and down the dec's 

Went striding to and fro ; 
Now watched the compass at the wheel, 
Now lifted up his hand to feel 

Which way the wind might blow. 

4nd now he looked up at the sails, 

And now upon the deep ; 
jln every fibre of his frame 
He felt the storm before it came, 

He had no thought of sleep. 

Eight bells ! and suddenly abaft, 

With a great rush of rain, 
Making the ocean white with spume, 
In darkness like the day of doom, 

On came the hurricane. 

The lightning flashed from cloud to cloud, 

And rent the sky in two ; 
A jagged flame, a single jet 
Of white fire, like a bayonet, 

That pierced the eyeballs through. 

Then all around was dark again, 

And blacker than before ; 
But in that single flash of light 
He had beheld a fearful sight, 

And thought of the oath he swore. 

For right ahead lay the Ship of the Dead, 

The ghostly Carmilhan ! 
Her masts were stripped, her yards were 

bare, 
And on her bowsprit, poised in air, 

Sat the Klaboterman. 

Her crew of ghosts was all on deck 
Or clambering up the shrouds ; 

The boatswain's whistle, the captain's 
hail 

Were like the piping of the gale, 
And thunder in the clouds. 

And close behind the Carmilhan 

There rose up from the sea, 
As from a foundered ship of stone, 
Three bare and splintered masts alone : 

They were the Chimneys Three. 



And onward dashed the Valdemar 

And leaped into the dark ; 
A denser mist, a colder blast, 
A little shudder, and she had passed 

Right through the Phantom Bark. 

She cleft in twain the shadowy hulk, 

But cleft it unaware ; 
As when, careering to her nest, 
The sea-gull severs with her breast 

The unresisting air. 

Again the lightning flashed ; again 

They saw the Carmilhan, 
Whole as before in hull and spar ; 
But now on board of the Valdemar 

Stood the Klaboterman. 

And they all knew their doom was sealed ; 

They knew that death was near ; 
Some prayed who never prayed before, 
And some they wept, and some they 
swore, 

And some were mute with fear. 

Then suddenly there came a shock, 

And louder than wind or sea 
A cry burst from the crew on deck, 
As she dashed and crashed, a hopeless 
wreck, 

Upon the Chimneys Three. 

The storm and night were passed, the light 

To streak the east began ; 
The cabin-boy, picked up at sea, 
Survived the wreck, and only he, 

To tell of the Carmilhan. 



INTERLUDE 

When the long murmur of applause 
That greeted the Musician's lay 
Had slowly buzzed itself away, 
And the long talk of Spectre Ships 
That followed died upon their lips 
And came unto a natural pause, 
" These tales you tell are one and all 
Of the Old World," the Poet said, 
" Flowers gathered from a crumbling 
Dead leaves that rustle as they fall ; 
Let me present you in their stead 
Something of our New England earth, 
A tale, which, though of no great worth, 
Has still this merit, that it yields 



THE POET'S TALE 



255 



A certain freshness of the fields, 

A sweetness as of home-made bread." 

The Student answered : " Be discreet ; 
For if the Hour be fresh and sound, 
And if the bread be light and sweet, 
Who careth in what mill 't was ground, 
Or of what oven felt the heat, 
Unless, as old Cervantes said, 
You are looking after better bread 
Than any that is made of wheat ? 
You know that people nowadays 
To what is old give little praise ; 
All must be new in prose and verse ; 
They want hot bread, or something worse, 
Fresh every morning, and half baked ; 
The wholesome bread of yesterday, 
Too stale for them, is thrown away, 
Nor is their thirst with water slaked." 

As oft we see the sky in May 
Threaten to rain, and yet not rain, 
The Poet's face, before so gay, 
Was clouded with a look of pain, 
But suddenly brightened up again ; 
And without further let or stay 
He told his tale of yesterday. 



THE POET'S TALE 

LADY WENTWORTH 

One hundred years ago, and something 

more, 
In Queen Street, Portsmouth, at her tav- 
ern door, 
Neat as a pin, and blooming as a rose, 
Stood Mistress Stavers in her furbelows, 
Just as her cuckoo-clock was striking nine. 
Above her head, resplendent on the sign, 
The portrait of the Earl of Halifax, 
In scarlet coat and periwig of flax, 
Surveyed at leisure all her varied charms, 
Her cap, her bodice, her white folded arms, 
And half resolved, though he was past his 

prime, 
And rather damaged by the lapse of time, 
To fall down at her feet, and to declare 
The passion that had driven him to de- 
spair. 
For from his lofty station he had seen 
Stavers, her husband, dressed in bottle- 
green, 



Drive his new Flying Stage-coach, four in 

hand, 
Down the long lane, and out into the land, 
And knew that he was far upon the way 
To Ipswich and to Boston on the Bay ! 

Just then the meditations of the Earl 
Were interrupted by a little girl, 
Barefooted, ragged, with neglected hair, 
Eyes full of laughter, neck and shoulders 

bare, 
A thin slip of a girl, like a new moon, 
Sure to be rounded into beauty soon, 
A creature men would worship and adore, 
Though now in mean habiliments she bore 
A pail of water, dripping through the street, 
And bathing, as she went, her naked feet. 

It was a pretty picture, full of grace, — 
The slender form, the delicate, thin face ; 
The swaying motion, as she hurried by ; 
The shining feet, the laughter in her eye, 
That o'er her face in ripples gleamed and 

glanced, 
As in her pail the shifting sunbeam danced : 
And with uncommon feelings of delight 
The Earl of Halifax beheld the sight. 
Not so Dame Stavers, for he heard her say 
These words, or thought he did, as plain as 

day: 
" O Martha Hilton ! Fie ! how dare you 

go 
About the town half dressed, and looking 

so ! " 
At which the gypsy laughed, and straight 

replied : 
" No matter how I look ; I yet shall ride 
In my own chariot, ma'am." And on the 

child 
The Earl of Halifax benignly smiled, 
As with her heavy burden she passed on, 
Looked back, then turned the corner, and 

was gone. 

What next, upon that memorable day, 

Arrested his attention was a gay 

And brilliant equipage, that flashed and 

spun, 
The silver harness glittering in the sun, 
Outriders with red jackets, lithe and lank. 
Pounding the saddles as they rose and sank,, 
While all alone within the chariot sat 
A portly person with three-cornered hat, 
A crimson velvet coat, head high in air, 
Gold-headed cane, and nicely powdered hair. 



2=;6 



TALES OF A WAYSIDE INN 



And diamond buckles sparkling at his 

knees, 
Dignified, stately, florid, much at ease. 
Onward the pageant swept, and as it 

passed, 
Fair Mistress Stavers courtesied low and 

fast ; 
For this was Governor Wentworth, driving 

down 
To Little Harbor, just beyond the town, 
Where his Great House stood looking out 

to sea, 
A goodly place, where it was good to be. 

It was a pleasant mansion, an abode 
Near and yet hidden from the great high- 
road, 
Sequestered among trees, a noble pile, 
Baronial and colonial in its style ; 
Gables and dormer-windows everywhere, 
And stacks of chimneys rising high in 

air, — 
Pandsean pipes, on which all winds that 

blew 
Made mournful music the whole winter 

through. 
Within, unwonted splendors met the eye, 
Panels, and floors of oak, and tapestry ; 
Carved chimney-pieces, where on brazen 

dogs 
Revelled and roared the Christmas fires of 

logs ; 
Doors opening into darkness unawares, 
Mysterious passages, and flights of stairs ; 
And on the walls, in heavy gilded frames, 
The ancestral Wentworths with Old-Scrip- 
ture names. 

Such was the mansion where the great man 

dwelt, 
A widower and childless ; and he felt 
The loneliness, the uncongenial gloom, 
That like a presence haunted every room ; 
For though not given to weakness, he could 

feel 
The pain of wounds, that ache because 

they heal. 

The years came and the years went, — 
seven in all, 

And passed in cloud and sunshine o'er the 
Hall; 

The dawns their splendor through its cham- 
bers shed, 

The sunsets flushed its western windows red ; 



The snow was on its roofs, the wind, the 

rain ; 
Its woodlands were in leaf and bare again ; 
Moons waxed and waned, the lilacs bloomed 

and died, 
In the broad river ebbed and flowed the 

tide, 
Ships went to sea, and ships came home 

from sea, 
And the slow years sailed by and ceased 

to be. 

And all these years had Martha Hilton 
served 

In the Great House, not wholly unob- 
served : 

By day, by night, the silver crescent grew, 

Though hidden by clouds, her light still 
shining through ; 

A maid of all work, whether coarse or 
fine, 

A servant who made service seem divine ! 

Through her each room was fair to look 
upon ; 

The mirrors glistened, and the brasses 
shone, 

The very knocker on the outer door, 

If she but passed, was brighter than be- 
fore. 

And now the ceaseless turning of the mill 
Of time, that never for an hour stands 

still, 
Ground out the Governor's sixtieth birth- 
day, 
And powdered his brown hair with silve?' 

gray. 
The robin, the forerunner of the spring, 
The bluebird with his jocund carolling, 
The restless swallows building iu the eaves, 
The golden buttercups, the grass, the 

leaves, 
The lilacs tossing in the winds of May, 
All welcomed this majestic holiday ! 
He gave a splendid banquet, served on 

plate, 
Snch as became the Governor of the State, 
Who represented England and the King, 
And was magnificent in everything. 
He had invited all his friends and peers, — 
The Pepperels, the Langdons, and the 

Lears, 
The Sparhawks, the Penhallows, and the 

rest ; 
For why repeat the name of every guest % 



THE THEOLOGIAN'S TALE 



257 



But I must mention one in bands and gown, 
The rector there, the Reverend Arthur 

Brown 
Of the Established Church ; with smiling 

face 
He sat beside the Governor and said grace ; 
And then the feast went on, as others do, 
But ended as none other I e'er knew. 

When they had drunk the King, with many 

a cheer, 
The Governor whispered in a servant's ear, 
Who disappeared, and presently there stood 
Within the room, in perfect womanhood, 
A. maiden, modest and yet self-possessed, 
Youthful and beautiful, and simply dressed. 
Can this be Martha Hilton ? It must be ! 
Yes, Martha Hilton, and no other she ! 
Dowered with the beauty of her twenty 

years, 
How ladylike, how queenlike she appears ; 
The pale, thin crescent of the days gone by 
Is Dian now in all her majesty ! 
Yet scarce a guest perceived that she was 

there, 
Until the Governor, rising from his chair, 
Played slightly with his ruffles, then looked 

down, 
And said unto the Reverend Arthur 

Brown : 
I This is my birthday : it shall likewise be 
My wedding-day ; and you shall marry 

me!" 

The listening guests were greatly mystified, 
None more so than the rector, who replied : 
I Marry you ? Yes, that were a pleasant 

task, 
Your Excellency ; but to whom ? I ask." 
The Governor answered : " To this lady 

here ; " 
And beckoned Martha Hilton to draw near. 
She came and stood, all blushes, at his side. 
The rector paused. The impatient Gov- 
ernor cried : 
" This is the lady ; do you hesitate ? 
Then I command you as Chief Magistrate." 
The rector read the service loud and clear : 
" Dearly beloved, we are gathered here," 
And so on to the end. At his command 
On the fourth finger of her fair left hand 
The Governor placed the ring ; and that 

was all : 
Martha was Lady Wentworth of the Hall ! 



INTERLUDE 

Well pleased the audience heard the tale. 
The Theologian said : " Indeed, 
To praise you there is little need ; 
One almost hears the farmer's flail 
Thresh out your wheat, nor doeg there 

fail 
A certain freshness, as you said, 
And sweetness as of home-made bread. 
But not less sweet and not less fresh 
Are many legends that I know, 
Writ by the monks of long-ago, 
Who loved to mortify the flesh, 
So that the soul might purer grow, 
And rise to a diviner state ; 
And one of these — perhaps of all 
Most beautiful — I now recall, 
And with permission will narrate ; 
Hoping thereby to make amends 
For that grim tragedy of mine, 
As strong and black as Spanish wine, 
I told last night, and wish almost 
It had remained untold, my friends ; 
For Torquemada's awful ghost 
Came to me in the dreams I dreamed, 
And in the darkness glared and gleamed 
Like a great lighthouse on the coast." 

The Student laughing said : " Far more 

Like to some dismal fire of bale 

Flaring portentous on a hill ; 

Or torches lighted on a shore 

By wreckers in a midnight gale. 

No matter ; be it as you will, 

Only go forward with your tale." 



THE THEOLOGIAN'S TALE 

THE LEGEND BEAUTIFUL 

" Hadst thou stayed, I must have fled i "* 
That is what the Vision said. 

In his chamber all alone, 
Kneeling on the floor of stone, 
Prayed the Monk in deep contrition 
For his sins of indecision, 
Prayed for greater self-denial 
In temptation and in trial ; 
It was noonday by the dial, 
And the Monk was all alone. 



2 5 8 



TALES OF A WAYSIDE INN 



Suddenly, as if it lightened, 
An unwonted splendor brightened 
All within him and without him 
In that narrow cell of stone ; 
And he saw the Blessed Vision 
Of our Lord, with light Elysian 
Like a vesture wrapped about Him, 
Like a garment round Him thrown. 

Not as crucified and slain, 

Not in agonies of pain, 

Not with bleeding hands and feet, 

Did the Monk his Master see ; 

But as in the village street, 

In the house or harvest-field, 

Halt and lame and blind He healed, 

When He walked in Galilee. 

In an attitude imploring, 

Hands upon his bosom crossed, 

Wondering, worshipping, adoring, 

Knelt the Monk in rapture lost. 

Lord, he thought, in heaven that reignest, 

Who am I, that thus thou deignest 

To reveal thyself to me ? 

Who am I, that from the centre 

Of thy glory thou shouldst enter 

This poor cell, my guest to be ? 

Then amid his exaltation, 
Loud the convent bell appalling, 
From its belfry calling, calling, 
Rang through court and corridor 
With persistent iteration 
He had never heard before. 
It was now the appointed hour 
When alike in shine or shower, 
Winter's cold or summer's heat, 
To the convent portals came 
All the blind and halt and lame, 
All the beggars of the street, 
For their daily dole of food 
Dealt them by the brotherhood ; 
And their almoner was he 
Who upon his bended knee, 
Rapt in silent ecstasy 
Of divinest self-surrender, 
Saw the Vision and the Splendor. 
Deep distress and hesitation 
Mingled with his adoration ; 
Should he go or should he stay ? 
Should he leave the poor to wait 
Hungry at the convent gate, 
Till the Vision passed away ? 



Should he slight his radiant guest, 
Slight this visitant celestial, 
For a crowd of ragged, bestial 
Beggars at the convent gate ? 
Would the Vision there remain ? 
Would the Vision come again ? 
Then a voice within his breast 
Whispered, audible and clear 
As if to the outward ear : 
" Do thy duty ; that is best ; 
Leave unto thy Lord the rest I " 

Straightway to his feet he started, 
And with longing look intent 
On the Blessed Vision bent, 
Slowly from his cell departed, 
Slowly on his errand went. 

At the gate the poor were waiting, 
Looking through the iron grating, 
With that terror in the eye { 
That is only seen in those 
Who amid their wants and woes 
Hear the sound of doors that close, 
And of feet that pass them by ; 
Grown familiar with disfavor, 
Grown familiar with the savor 
Of the bread by which men die ! 
But to-day, they know not why, 
Like the gate of Paradise 
Seemed the convent gate to rise, 
Like a sacrament divine 
Seemed to them the bread and wine. 
In his heart the Monk was praying, 
Thinking of the homeless poor, 
What they suffer and endure ; 
What we see not, what we see ; 
And the inward voice was saying i 
" Whatsoever thing thou doest 
To the least of mine and lowest, 
That thou doest unto me ! " 

Unto me ! but had the Vision 
Come to him in beggar's clothing, 
Come a mendicant imploring, 
Would he then have knelt adoring, 
Or have listened with derision, 
And have turned away with loathing ? 

Thus his conscience put the question, 
Full of troublesome suggestion, 
As at length, with hurried pace, 
Towards his cell he turned his face, 
And beheld the convent bright 






THE STUDENT'S SECOND TALE 



259 



With a supernatural light, 

Like a luminous cloud expanding 

Over floor and wall and ceiling. 

But he paused with awe-struck feeling 
At the threshold of his door, 
For the Vision still was standing 
As he left it there before, 
When the convent bell appalling, 
From its belfry calling, calling, 
Summoned him to feed the poor. 
Through the long hour intervening- 
It had waited his return, 
And he felt his bosom burn, 
Comprehending all the meaning, 
When the Blessed Vision said, 
" Hadst thou stayed, I must have fled ! " 



INTERLUDE 

All praised the Legend more or less ; 

Some liked the moral, some the verse ; 

Some thought it better, and some worse 

Than other legends of the past ; 

Until, with ill-concealed distress 

At all their cavilling, at last 

The Theologian gravely said : 

*' The Spanish proverb, then, is right ; 

Consult your friends on what you do, 

And one will say that it is white, 

And others say that it is red." 

And " Amen ! " quoth the Spanish Jew. 

" Six stories told ! We must have seven, 

A cluster like the Pleiades, 

And lo ! it happens, as with these, 

That one is missing from our heaven. 

Where is the Landlord ? Bring him 

here ; 
Let the Lost Pleiad reappear." 

Thus the Sicilian cried, and went 
Forthwith to seek his missing star, 
But did not find him in the bar, 
A place that landlords most frequent, 
Nor yet beside the kitchen fire, 
Nor up the stairs, nor in the hall ; 
It was in vain to ask or call, 
There were no tidings of the Squire. 

So he came back with downcast head, 
Exclaiming : " Well, our bashful host 
Hath surely given up the ghost. 
Another proverb says the dead 



Can tell no tales ; and that is true. 
It follows, then, that one of you 
Must tell a story in his stead. 
You must," he to the Student said, 
" Who know so many of the best, 
And tell them better than the rest." 

Straight, by these flattering words be- 

guiled, 
The Student, happy as a child 
When he is called a little man, 
Assumed the double task imposed, 
And without more ado unclosed 
His smiling lips, and thus began. 



THE STUDENT'S SECOND TALE 

THE BARON OF ST. CASTINE 

Baron Castine of St. Castine 
Has left his chateau in the Pyrenees, 
And sailed across the western seas. 
When he went away from his fair demesne 
The birds were building, the woods were 

green ; 
And now the winds of winter blow 
Round the turrets of the old chateau, 
The birds are silent and unseen, 
The leaves lie dead in the ravine, 
And the Pyrenees are white with snow 

His father, lonely, old, and gray, 
Sits by the fireside day by day, 
Thinking ever one thought of care ; 
Through the southern windows, narrow and 

tall, 
The sun shines into the ancient hall, 
And makes a glory round his hair. 
The house-dog, stretched beneath his 

chair, 
Groans in his sleep, as if in pain, 
Then wakes, and yawns, and sleeps again, 
So silent is it everywhere, — 
So silent you can hear the mouse 
Run and rummage along the beams 
Behind the wainscot of the wall ; 
And the old man rouses from his dreams, 
And wanders restless through the house, 
As if he heard strange voices call. 

His footsteps echo along the floor 
Of a distant passage, and pause awhile ; 
He is standing by an open door 
Looking long, with a sad, sweet smile, 



z6o 



TALES OF A WAYSIDE INN 



Into the room of his absent son. 
There is the bed on which he lay, 
There are the pictures bright and gay, 
Horses and hounds and sun-lit seas ; 
There are his powder-flask and gun, 
And his hunting-knives in shape of a fan ; 
The chair by the window where he sat, 
With the clouded tiger-skin for a mat, 
Looking out on the Pyrenees, 
Looking out on Mount Marbord 
And the Seven Valleys of Lavedan. 
Ah me ! he turns away and sighs ; 
There is a mist before his eyes. 

At night, whatever the weather be, 
Wind or rain or starry heaven, 
Just as the clock is striking seven, 
Those who look from the windows see 
The village Curate, with lantern and maid, 
Come through the gateway from the park 
And cross the courtyard damp and 

dark, — 
A ring of light in a ring of shade. 

And now at the old man's side he stands, 
His voice is cheery, his heart expands, 
He gossips pleasantly, by the blaze 
Of the fire of fagots, about old days, 
And Cardinal Mazarin and the Fronde, 
And the Cardinal's nieces fair and fond, 
And what they did, and what they said, 
When they heard his Eminence was dead. 

And after a pause the old man says, 

His mind still coming back again 

To the one sad thought that haunts his 

brain, 
" Are there any tidings from over sea ? 
Ah, why has that wild boy gone from 

me?" 
And the Curate answers, looking down, 
Harmless and docile as a lamb, 
" Young blood ! young blood ! It must so 

be!" 
And draws from the pocket of his gown 
A handkerchief like an oriflamb, 
And wipes his spectacles, and they play 
Their little game of lansquenet 
In silence for an hour or so, 
Till the clock at nine strikes loud and clear 
From the village lying asleep below, 
And across the courtyard, into the dark 
Of the winding pathway in the park, 
Curate and lantern disappear, 
And darkness reigns in the old chateau. 



The ship has come back from over sea, 
She has been signalled from below, 
And into the harbor of Bordeaux 
She sails with her gallant company. 
But among them is nowhere seen 
The brave young Baron of St. Castine ; 
He hath tarried behind, I ween, 
In the beautiful land of Acadie ! 

And the father paces to and fro 

Through the chambers of the old chateau, 

Waiting, waiting to hear the hum 

Of wheels on the road that runs below, 

Of servants hurrying here and there, 

The voice in the courtyard, the step on the 

stair, 
Waiting for some one who doth not come ! 
But letters there are, which the old man 

reads 
To the Curate, when he comes at night, 
Word by word, as an acolyte 
Repeats his prayers and tells his beads ; 
Letters full of the rolling sea, 
Full of a young man's joy to be 
Abroad in the world, alone and free ; 
Full of adventures and wonderful scenes 
Of hunting the deer through forests vast 
In the royal grant of Pierre du Gast ; 
Of nights in the tents of the Tarratines ; 
Of Madocawando the Indian chief, 
And his daughters, glorious as queens, 
And beautiful beyond belief ; 
And so soft the tones of their nativ' 

tongue, 
The words are not spoken, they are sung I 

And the Curate listens, and smiling says : 

" Ah yes, dear friend ! in our young days 

We should have liked to hunt the deer 

All day amid those forest scenes, 

And to sleep in the tents of the Tarratines 

But now it is better sitting here 

Within four walls, and without the fear 

Of losing our hearts to Indian queens ; 

For man is fire and woman is tow, 

And the Somebody conies and begins M 

blow." 
Then a gleam of distrust and vague sur- 
mise 
Shines in the father's gentle eyes, 
As fire-light on a window-pane 
Glimmers and vanishes again ; 
But naught he answers ; he only sighs; 
And for a moment bows his head ; 
Then, as their custom is, they play 






THE STUDENT'S SECOND TALE 



261 



Their little game of lansquenet, 
And another day is with the dead. 

Another day, and many a day 

And many a week and month depart, 

When a fatal letter wings its way 

Across the sea, like a bird of prey, 

And strikes and tears the old man's heart. 

Lo ! the young Baron of St. Castine, 

Swift as the wind is, and as wild, 

Has married a dusky Tarratine, 

Has married Madocawando's child I 

The letter drops from the father's hand ; 
Though the sinews of his heart are wrung, 
He utters no cry, he breathes no prayer, 
No malediction falls from his tongue ; 
But his stately figure, erect and grand, 
Bends and sinks like a column of sand 
In the whirlwind of his great despair. 
Dying, yes, dying ! His latest breath 
Of parley at the door of death 
Is a blessing on his wayward son. 
Lower and lower on his breast 
Sinks his gray head ; he is at rest ; 
No longer he waits for any one. 

For many a year the old chateau 
Lies tenantless and desolate ; 
Rank grasses in the courtyard grow, 
About its gables caws the crow ; 
Only the porter at the gate 
Is left to guard it, and to wait 
The coming of the rightful heir ; 
No other life or sound is there ; 
No more the Curate comes at night, 
No more is seen the unsteady light, 
Threading the alleys of the park ; 
The windows of the hall are dark, 
The chambers dreary, cold, and bare ! 

At length, at last, when the winter is past, 
And birds are building, and woods are 

green, 
With flying skirts is the Curate seen 
Speeding along the woodland way, 
Humming gayly, " No day is so long 
But it comes at last to vesper-song." 
He stops at the porter's lodge to say 
That at last the Baron of St. Castine 
Is coming home with his Indian queen, 
Is coming without a week's delay ; 
And all the house must be swept and clean, 
And all things set in good array ! 
And the solemn porter shakes his head ; 



And the answer he makes is : " Lackaday I 
We will see, as the blind man said ! " 

Alert since first the day began, 
The cock upon the village church 
Looks northward from his airy perch, 
As if beyond the ken of man 
To see the ships come sailing on, 
And pass the Isle of Ole'ron, 
And pass the Tower of Cordouan. 

In the church below is cold in clay 

The heart that would have leaped for joy—* 

O tender heart of truth and trust ! — 

To see the coming of that day ; 

In the church below the lips are dust ; 

Dust are the hands, and dust the feet 

That would have been so swift to meet 

The coming of that wayward boy. 

At night the front of the old chateau 
Is a blaze of light above and below ; 
There 's a sound of wheels and hoofs in the 

street, 
A cracking of whips, and scamper of feet, 
Bells are ringing, and horns are blown, 
And the Baron hath come again to his own, 
The Curate is waiting in the hall, 
Most eager and alive of all 
To welcome the Baron and Baroness ; 
But his mind is full of vague distress, 
For he hath read in Jesuit books 
Of those children of the wilderness, 
And now, good, simple man ! he looks 
To see a painted savage stride 
Into the room, with shoulders bare, 
And eagle feathers in her hair, 
And around her a robe of panther's hide. 

Instead, he beholds with secret shame 
A form of beauty undefined, 
A loveliness without a name, 
Not of degree, but more of kind ; 
Nor bold nor shy, nor short nor tall, 
But a new mingling of them all. 
Yes, beautiful beyond belief, 
Transfigured and transfused, he sees 
The lady of the Pyrenees, 
The daughter of the Indian chief. 
Beneath the shadow of her hair 
The gold-bronze color of the skin 
Seems lighted by a fire within, 
As when a burst of sunlight shine3 
Beneath a sombre grove of pines, — 
A dusky splendor in the air. 



262 



TALES OF A WAYSIDE INN 



The two small hands, that now are pressed 

In his, seem made to be caressed, 

They lie so warm and soft and still, 

Like birds half hidden in a nest, 

Trustful, and innocent of ill. 

And ah ! he cannot believe his ears 

When her melodious voice he hears 

Speaking his native Gascon tongue ; 

The words she utters seem to be 

Part of some poem of Goudouli, 

They are not spoken, they are sung ! 

And the Baron smiles, and says, " You see, 

I told you but the simple truth ; 

Ah, you may trust the eyes of youth ! " 

Down in the village day by day 

The people gossip in their way, 

And stared to see the Baroness pass 

On Sunday morning to early mass ; 

And when she kneeleth down to pray, 

They wonder, and whisper together, and say 

" Surely this is no heathen lass ! " 

And in course of time they learn to bless 

The Baron and the Baroness. 

And in course of time the Curate learns 

A secret so dreadful, that by turns 

He is ice and fire, he freezes and burns. 

The Baron at confession hath said, 

That though this woman be his wife, 

He hath wed her as the Indians wed, 

He hath bought her for a gun and a knife ! 

And the Curate replies : " O profligate, 

O Prodigal Son ! return once more 

To the open arms and the open door 

Of the Church, or ever it be too late. 

Thank God, thy father did not live 

To see what he could not forgive ; 

On thee, so reckless and perverse, 

He left his blessing, not his curse. 

But the nearer the dawn the darker the 

night, 
And by going wrong all things come right ; 
Things have been mended that were worse, 
And the worse, the nearer they are to mend. 
For the sake of the living and the dead, 
Thou shalt be wed as Christians wed, 
And all things come to a happy end." 

O sun, that followest the night, 
In yon blue sky, serene and pure, 
And pourest thine impartial light 
Alike on mountain and on moor, 
Pause for a moment in thy course, 
And bless the bridegroom and the bride 1 



O Gave, that from thy hidden source 
In yon mysterious mountain-side 
Pursuest thy wandering way alone, 
And leaping down its steps of stone, 
Along the meadow-lands demure 
Stealest away to the Adour, 
Pause for a moment in thy course 
To bless the bridegroom and the bride I 

The choir is singing the matin song, 
The doors of the church are opened wide t 
The people crowd, and press, and throng 
To see the bridegroom and the bride. 
They enter and pass along the nave ; 
They stand upon the father's grave ; 
The bells are ringing soft and slow ; 
The living above and the dead below 
Give their blessing on one and twain ; 
The warm wind blows from the hills of 

Spain, 
The birds are building, the leaves are 

green, 
And Baron Castine of St. Castine 
Hath come at last to his own again. 



FINALE 

" Nunc plaudite ! " the Student cried, 

When he had finished ; " now applaud, 

As Roman actors used to say 

At the conclusion of a play ; " 

And rose, and spread his hands abroad, 

And smiling bowed from side to side, 

As one who bears the palm away. 

And generous was the applause and loud, 
But less for him than for the sun, 
That even as the tale was done 
Burst from its canopy of cloud, 
And lit the landscape with the blaze 
Of afternoon on autumn days, 
And filled the room with light, and made 
The fire of logs a painted shade. 

A sudden wind from out the west 
Blew all its trumpets loud and shrill ; 
The windows rattled with the blast, 
The oak-trees shouted as it passed, 
And straight, as if by fear possessed, 
The cloud encampment on the hill 
Broke up, and fluttering flag and tent 
Vanished into the firmament, 
And down the valley fled amain 
The rear of the retreating rain* 






PRELUDE 



26) 



Only far up in the blue sky 

A mass of clouds, like drifted snow 

Suffused with a faint Alpine glow, 

Was heaped together, vast and high, 

On which a shattered rainbow hung, 

Not rising like the ruined arch 

Of some aerial aqueduct, 

But like a roseate garland plucked 

From an Olympian god, and flung 

Aside in his triumphal march. 

Like prisoners from their dungeon gloom, 
Like birds escaping from a snare, 
Like school-boys at the hour of play, 
All left at once the pent-up room, 
And rushed into the open air ; 
And no more tales were told that day. 



PART THIRD 

PRELUDE 

The evening came ; the golden vane 
A moment in the sunset glanced, 
Then darkened, and then gleamed again, 
As from the east the moon advanced 
And touched it with a softer light ; 
While underneath, with flowing mane, 
Upon the sign the Red Horse pranced, 
And galloped forth into the night. 

But brighter than the afternoon 
That followed the dark day of rain, 
And brighter than the golden vane 
That glistened in the rising moon, 
Within, the ruddy fire-light gleamed ; 
And every separate window-pane, 
Backed by the outer darkness, showed 
A mirror, where the flamelets gleamed 
And flickered to and fro, and seemed 
A bonfire lighted in the road. 

Amid the hospitable glow, 
Like an old actor on the stage, 
With the uncertain voice of age, 
The singing chimney chanted low 
The homely songs of long ago. 

The voice that Ossian heard of yore, 
When midnight winds were in his hall ; 
A ghostly and appealing call, 
A sound of days that are no more ! 
And dark as Ossian sat the Jew, 
And listened to the sound, and knew 



The passing of the airy hosts, 

The gray and misty cloud of ghosts 

In their interminable flight ; 

And listening muttered in his beard, 

With accent indistinct and weird, 

" Who are ye, children of the Night ? n 

Beholding his mysterious face, 
" Tell me," the gay Sicilian said, 
" Why was it that in breaking bread 
At supper, you bent down your head 
And, musing, paused a little space, 
As one who says a silent grace ? " 

The Jew replied, w r ith solemn air, 

" I said the Manichsean's prayer. 

It was his faith, — perhaps is mine, — 

That life in all its forms is one, 

And that its secret conduits run 

Unseen, but in unbroken line, 

From the great fountain-head divine 

Through man and beast, through grain antf 

grass. 
Howe'er we struggle, strive, and cry, 
From death there can be no escape, 
And no escape from life, alas ! 
Because we cannot die, but pass 
From one into another shape : 
It is but into life we die. 

" Therefore the Manichsean said 
This simple prayer on breaking bread, 
Lest he with hasty hand or knife 
Might wound the incarcerated life, 
The soul in things that we call dead : 
' I did not reap thee, did not bind thee, 
I did not thrash thee, did not grind thee, 
Nor did I in the oven bake thee ! 
It was not I, it was another 
Did these things unto thee, O brother ; 
I only have thee, hold thee, break thee ! ' * 

" That birds have souls I can concede," 

The Poet cried, with glowing cheeks ; 

" The flocks that from their beds of reed 

Uprising north or southward fly, 

And flying write upon the sky 

The biforked letter of the Greeks, 

As hath been said by Rucellai ; 

All birds that sing or chirp or cry, 

Even those migratory bands, 

The minor poets of the air, 

The plover, peep, and sanderling, 

That hardly can be said to sing, 

But pipe along the barren sands, — 



264 



TALES OF A WAYSIDE INN 



All these have souls akin to ours ; 

So hath the lovely race of flowers : 

Thus much I grant, but nothing more. 

The rusty hinges of a door 

Are not alive because they creak ; 

This chimney, with its dreary roar, 

These rattling windows, do not speak ! " 

" To me they speak," the Jew replied ; 

" And in the sounds that sink and soar, 

I hear the voices of a tide 

That breaks upon an unknown shore ! " 

Here the Sicilian interfered : 
" That was your dream, then, as you dozed 
A moment since, with eyes half-closed, 
And murmured something in your beard." 
The Hebrew smiled, and answered, " Nay ; 
Not that, but something very near ; 
Like, and yet not the same, may seem 
The vision of my waking dream ; 
Before it whollydies away, 
Listen to me, aud you shall hear." 



THE SPANISH JEW'S TALE 

AZRAEL 

King Solomon, before his palace gate 
At evening, on the pavement tessellate 
Was walking with a stranger from the 

East, 
Arrayed in rich attire as for a feast, 
The mighty Runjeet-Sing, a learned man, 
And Rajah of the realms of Hindostan. 
And as they walked the guest became 

aware 
Of a white figure in the twilight air, 
Gazing intent, as one who with surprise 
His form and features seemed to recog- 
nize ; 
And in a whisper to the king he said : 
" What is yon shape, that, pallid as the 

dead, 
Is watching me, as if he sought to trace 
In the dim light the features of my face ? " 

The king looked, and replied : "I know 

him well ; 
It is the Angel men call Azrael, 
'T is the Death Angel ; what hast thou to 

fear ? " 
And the guest answered : " Lest he should 

come near, 



And speak to me, and take away mj 

breath ! 
Save me from Azrael, save me from 

death ! 
O king, that hast dominion o'er the wind, 
Bid it arise and bear me hence to Ind." 

The king gazed upward at the cloudless 

sky, 
Whispered a word, and raised his hand on 

high, 
And lo ! the signet-ring of chrysoprase 
On his uplifted finger seemed to blaze 
With hidden fire, and rushing from the 

west 
There came a mighty wind, and seized the 

guest 
And lifted him from earth, and on they 



His shining garments streaming in the 

blast, 
A silken banner o'er the walls upreared, 
A purple cloud, that gleamed and disaj 

peared. 
Then said the Angel, smiling: "If thL 

man 
Be Rajah Runjeet-Sing of Hindostan, 
Thou hast done well in listening to his* 

prayer ; 
I was upon my way to seek him there.* 8 



INTERLUDE 

" O Edrehi, forbear to-night 
Your ghostly legends of affright, 
And let the Talmud rest in peace ; 
Spare us your dismal tales of death 
That almost take away one's breath | 
So doing, may your tribe increase." 

Thus the Sicilian said ; then went 
And on the spinet's rattling keys 
Played Marianina, like a breeze 
From Naples and the Southern seas. 
That brings us the delicious scent 
Of citron and of orange trees, 
And memories of soft days of ease 
At Capri and Amain spent. 

" Not so," the eager Poet said ; 
" At least, not so before I tell 
The story of my Azrael, 
An angel mortal as ourselves, 
Which in an ancient tome I found 



THE POET'S TALE 



265 



Upon a convent's dusty shelves, 
Chained with an iron chain, and bound 
In parchment, and with clasps of brass, 
Lest from its prison, some dark day, 
It might be stolen or steal away, 
While the good friars were singing mass. 

" It is a tale of Charlemagne, 
When like a thunder-cloud, that lowers 
And sweeps from mountain-crest to coast, 
With lightning flaming through its show- 
ers, 
He swept across the Lombard plain, 
Beleaguering with his warlike train 
Pavia, the country's pride and boast, 
The City of the Hundred Towers." 

Thus heralded the tale began, 
And thus in sober measure ran. 



THE POET'S TALE 

CHARLEMAGNE 

Olger the Dane and Desiderio, 

King of the Lombards, on a lofty tower 

Stood gazing northward o'er the rolling 

plains, 
League after league of harvests, to the 

foot 
Of the snow-crested Alps, and saw ap- 
proach 
A mighty army, thronging all the roads 
That led into the city. And the King 
Said unto Olger, who had passed his youth 
As hostage at the court of France, and 

knew 
The Emperor's form and face : " Is Char- 
lemagne 
Among that host ? " And Olger answered : 
"No." 

And still the innumerable multitude 

Flowed onward and increased, until the 
King 

Cried in amazement : " Surely Charle- 
magne 

Is coming in the midst of all these 
knights ! " 

And Olger answered slowly : " No ; not 

it . yet; 

He will not come so soon." Then much 

disturbed 

King Desiderio asked : " What shall we do, 



If he approach with a still greater army ? " 
And Olger answered : " When he shall 

appear, 
You will behold what manner of man he is ; 
But what will then befall us I know not." 

Then came the guard that never knew 

repose, 
The Paladins of France ; and at the sight 
The Lombard King o'ercome with terror 

cried : 
" This must be Charlemagne ! " and as 

before 
Did Olger answer : " No ; not yet, not 

yet." 

And then appeared in panoply complete 
The Bishops and the Abbots and the 

Priests 
Of the imperial chapel, and the Counts ; 
And Desiderio could no more endure 
The light of day, nor yet encounter death, 
But sobbed aloud and said : " Let us go 

down 
And hide us in the bosom of the earth, 
Far from the sight and anger of a foe 
So terrible as this ! " And Olger said : 
" When you behold the harvests in the 

fields 
Shaking with fear, the Po and the Ticino 
Lashing the city walls with iron waves, 
Then may you know that Charlemagne is 

come." 
And even as he spake, in the northwest, 
Lo ! there uprose a black and threatening 

cloud, 
Out of whose bosom flashed the light of 

arms 
Upon the people pent up in the city ; 
A light more terrible than any darkness, 
And Charlemagne appeared; — a Mai of 

Iron ! 

His helmet was of iron, and his gloves 
Of iron, and his breastplate and his greaves 
And tassets were of iron, and his shield. 
In his left hand he held an iron spear, 
In his right hand his sword invincible. 
The horse he rode on had the strength c/ 



All who went before 



iron, 
And color of iron. 

him, 
Beside him and behind him, his whole host. 
Were armed with iron, and their hearts 

within them 



266 



TALES OF A WAYSIDE INN 



Were stronger than the armor that they 

wore. 
The fields and all the roads were filled 

with iron, 
And points of iron glistened in the sun 
And shed a terror through the city streets. 

This at a single glance Olger the Dane 
Saw from the tower, and turning to the 

King 
Exclaimed in haste : " Behold ! this is the 

man 
You looked for with such eagerness ! " and 

then 
Fell as one dead at Desiderio's feet. 



INTERLUDE 

Well pleased all listened to the tale, 

That drew, the Student said, its pith 

And marrow from the ancient myth 

Of some one with an iron flail ; 

Or that portentous Man of Brass 

Hephaestus made in days of yore, 

Who stalked about the Cretan shore, 

And saw the ships appear and pass, 

And threw stones at the Argonauts, 

Being filled with indiscriminate ire 

That tangled and perplexed his thoughts ; 

But, like a hospitable host, 

When strangers landed on the coast, 

Heated himself red-hot with fire, 

And hugged them in his arms, and pressed 

Their bodies to his burning breast. 

The Poet answered : " No, not thus 

The legend rose ; it sprang at first 

Out of the hunger and the thirst 

In all men for the marvellous. 

And thus it filled and satisfied 

The imagination of mankind, 

And this ideal to the mind 

Was truer than historic fact. 

Fancy enlarged and multiplied 

The terrors of the awful name 

Of Charlemagne, till he became 

Armipotent in every act, 

And, clothed in mystery, appeared 

Not what men saw, but what they feared. 

*' Besides, unless my memory fail, 
Your some one with an iron flail 
Is not an ancient myth at all, 
But comes much later on the scene 



As Talus in the Faerie Queene, 

The iron groom of Artegall, 

Who threshed out falsehood and deceit, 

And truth upheld, and righted wrong, 

And was, as is the swallow, fleet, 

And as the lion is, was strong." 

The Theologian said : " Perchance 

Your chronicler in writing this 

Had in his mind the Anabasis, 

Where Xenophon describes the advance 

Of Artaxerxes to the fight ; 

At first the low gray cloud of dust, 

And then a blackness o'er the fields 

As of a passing thunder-gust, 

Then flash of brazen armor bright, 

And ranks of men, and spears up-thrust. 

Bowmen and troops with wicker shields, 

And cavalry equipped in white, 

And chariots ranged in front of these 

With scythes upon their axle-trees." 

To this the Student answered : " Well, 
I also have a tale to tell 
Of Charlemagne ; a tale that throws 
A softer light, more tinged with rose ? 
Than your grim apparition cast 
Upon the darkness of the past. 
Listen, and hear in English rhyme 
What the good Monk of Lauresheim 
Gives as the gossip of his time, 
In mediaeval Latin prose." 



THE STUDENT'S TALE 

EMMA AND EGINHARD 

When Alcuin taught the sons of Charle- 
magne, 
In the free schools of Aix, how kings should 

reign, 
And with them taught the children of the 

poor 
How subjects should be patient and endure^ 
He touched the lips of some, as best befit, 
With honey from the hives of Holy Writ ; 
Others intoxicated with the wine 
Of ancient history, sweet but less divine ; 
Some with the wholesome fruits of grammar 

fed; 
Others with mysteries of the stars o'erhead, 
That hang suspended in the vaulted sky 
Like lamps in some fair palace vast and 
high. 



THE STUDENT'S TALE 



26? 



In sooth, it was a pleasant sight to see 
That Saxon monk, with hood and rosary, 
With inkhorn at his belt, and pen and book, 
And mingled love and reverence in his look, 
Or hear the cloister and the court repeat 
The measured footfalls of his sandaled feet, 
Or watch him with the pupils of his school, 
Gentle of speech, but absolute of rule. 

Among them, always earliest in his place, 
Was Eginhard, a youth of Frankish race, 
Whose face was bright with flashes that 

forerun 
The splendors of a yet unrisen sun. 
To him all things were possible, and seemed 
Not what he had accomplished, but had 

dreamed, 
And what were tasks to others were his 

The pastime of an idle holiday. 

Smaragdo, Abbot of St. Michael's, said, 
With many a shrug and shaking of the 

head, 
Surely some demon must possess the lad, 
Who showed more wit than ever school-boy 

had, 
And learned his Trivium thus without the 

rod ; 
But Alcuin said it was the grace of God. 

Thus he grew up, in Logic point-device, 
Perfect in Grammar, and in Rhetoric nice ; 
Science of Numbers, Geometric art, 
And lore of Stars, and Music knew by 

heart ; 
A Minnesinger, long before the times 
Of those who sang their love in Suabian 

rhymes. 

The Emperor, when he heard this good 

report 
Of Eginhard much buzzed about the court, 
Said to himself, " This stripling seems to be 
Purposely sent into the world for me ; 
He shall become my scribe, and shall be 

schooled 
In all the arts whereby the world is ruled." 
Thus did the gentle Eginhard attain 
To honor in the court of Charlemagne ; 
Became the sovereign's favorite, his right 

hand, 
So that his fame was great in all the land, 
And all men loved him for his modest grace 
And comeliness of figure and of face. 



An inmate of the palace, yet recluse, 
A man of books, yet sacred from abuse 
Among the armed knights with spur on 

heel, 
The tramp of horses and the clang of steel ; 
And as the Emperor promised he was 

schooled 
In all the arts by which the world is ruledr 
But the one art supreme, whose law is fate, 
The Emperor never dreamed of till too 

late. 

Home from her convent to the palace came 
The lovely Princess Emma, whose sweet 

name, 
Whispered by seneschal or sung by bard, 
Had often touched the soul of Eginhard. 
He saw her from his window, as in state 
She came, by knights attended through the 

gate ; 
He saw her at the banquet of that day, 
Fresh as the morn, and beautiful as May ; 
He saw her in the garden, as she strayed 
Among the flowers of summer with her 

maid, 
And said to him, " O Eginhard, disclose 
The meaning and the mystery of the rose ; " 
And trembling he made answer : " In gooJ 

sooth, 
Its mystery is love, its meaning youth ! " 

How can I tell the signals and the signs 
By which one heart another heart divines 7 
How can I tell the many thousand ways 
By which it keeps the secret it betrays ? 

O mystery of love ! O strange romance ! 
Among the Peers and Paladins of France, 
Shining in steel, and prancing on gay steeds^ 
Noble by birth, yet nobler by great deeds, 
The Princess Emma had no words nor looks 
But for this clerk, this man of thought and 
books. 

The summer passed, the autumn came ; the 

stalks 
Of lilies blackened in the garden walks ; 
The leaves fell, russet-golden and blood-red, 
Love-letters thought the poet fancy-led, 
Or Jove descending in a shower of gold 
Into the lap of Danae of old ; 
For poets cherish many a strange conceit, 
And love transmutes all nature by its heat 
No more the garden lessons, nor the dark 
And hurried meetings in the twilight park 5 



268 



TALES OF A WAYSIDE INN 



But now the studious lamp, and the de- 
lights 

Of firesides in the silent winter nights, 

And watching from his window hour by 
hour 

The light that burned in Princess Emma's 
tower. 

At length one night, while musing by the 

tire, 
O'ercome at last by his insane desire, — 
For what will reckless love not do and 

dare ? 
He crossed the court, and climbed the wind- 
ing stair, 
With some feigned message in the Em- 
peror's name ; 
But when he to the lady's presence came 
He knelt down at her feet, until she laid 
Her hand upon him, like a naked blade, 
And whispered in his ear : " Arise, Sir 

Knight, 
To my heart's level, O my heart's delight." 

And there he lingered till the crowing 

cock, 
The Alectryon of the farmyard and the 

flock, 
Sang his aubade with lusty voice and clear, 
To tell the sleeping world that dawn was 

near. 
And then they parted ; but at parting, lo ! 
They saw the palace courtyard white with 

snow, 
And, placid as a nun, the moon on high 
Gazing from cloudy cloisters of the sky. 
" Alas ! " he said, " how hide the fatal line 
Of footprints leading from thy door to 

mine, 
And none returning ! " Ah, he little knew 
What woman's wit, when put to proof, can 

do ! 

That night the Emperor, sleepless with the 

cares 
And troubles that attend on state affairs, 
Had risen before the dawn, and musing 

gazed 
Into the silent night, as one amazed 
To see the calm that reigned o'et all 

supreme, 
When his own reign was but a troubled 

dream. 
The moon lit up the gables capped with 

snow, 



And the white roofs, and half the court 

below, 
And he beheld a form, that seemed to 

cower 
Beneath a burden, come from Emma's 

tower, — 
A woman, who upon her shoulders bore 
Clerk Eginhard to his own private door, 
And then returned in haste, but still 

essayed 
To tread the footprints she herself had 

made ; 
And as she passed across the lighted space, 
The Emperor saw his daughter Emma's 

face ! 

He started not ; he did not speak or moan, 
But seemed as one who hath been turned to 

stone ; 
And stood there like a statue, nor awoke 
Out of his trance of pain, till morning 

broke, 
Till the stars faded, and the moon went 

down, 
And o'er the towers and steeples of the 

town 
Came the gray daylight ; then the sun, who 

took 
The empire of the world with sovereign 

look, 
Suffusing with a soft and golden glow 
All the dead landscape in its shroud of 

snow, 
Touching with flame the tapering chapel 

spires, 
Windows and roofs, and smoke of house- 
hold fires, 
And kindling park and palace as he came ; 
The stork's nest on the chimney seemed in 

flame. 
And thus he stood till Eginhard appeared, 
Demure and modest with his comely beard 
And flowing flaxen tresses, come to ask, 
As was his wont, the day's appointed task. 
The Emperor looked upon him with a 

smile, 
And gently said : "My son, wait yet 

awhile ; 
This hour my council meets upon some 

great 
And very urgent business of the state. 
Come back within the hour. On thy re- 
turn 
The work appointed for thee shalt thou 
learn." 



INTERLUDE 



269 



Having dismissed this gallant Troubadour, 
He summoned straight his council, and 

secure 
And steadfast in his purpose, from the 

throne 
All the adventure of the night made 

known ; 
Then asked for sentence ; and with eager 

breath 
Some answered banishment, and others 

death. 

Then spake the king : " Your sentence is 
not mine ; 

Life is the gift of God, and is divine ; 

Nor from these palace walls shall one 
depart 

Who carries such a secret in his heart ; 

My better judgment points another way. 

Good Alcuin, 1 remember how one day 

When my Pepino asked you, ' What are 
men?' 

You wrote upon his tablets with your pen, 

' Guests of the grave and travellers that 
pass ! ' 

This being true of all men, we, alas ! 

Being all fashioned of the selfsame dust, 

Let us be merciful as well as just ; 

This passing traveller who hath stolen 
away 

The brightest jewel of my crown to-day, 

Shall of himself the precious gem re- 
store ; 

By giving it, I make it mine once more. 

Over those fatal footprints I will throw 

My ermine mantle like another snow." 

Then Eginhard was summoned to the 

hall, 
And entered, and in presence of them all, 
The Emperor said : " My son, for thou to 

me 
Hast been a son, and evermore shalt be, 
Long hast thou served thy sovereign, and 

thy zeal 
Pleads to me with importunate appeal, 
While I have been forgetful to requite 
Thy service and affection as was right. 
But now the hour is come, when I, thy 

Lord, 
Will crown thy love with such supreme 

reward, 
A gift so precious kings have striven in 

vain 
To win It from the hands of Charlemagne." 



Then sprang the portals of the chamber 

wide, 
And Princess Emma entered, in the pride 
Of birth and beauty, that in part o'ercame 
The conscious terror and the blush of 

shame. 
And the good Emperor rose up from his 

throne, 
And taking her white hand within his own 
Placed it in Egiuhard's, and said : " My 

son, 
This is the gift thy constant zeal hath won ; 
Thus I repay the royal debt I owe, 
And cover up the footprints in the snow." 



INTERLUDE 

Thus ran the Student's pleasant rhyme 
Of Eginhard and love and youth ; 
Some doubted its historic truth, 
But while they doubted, ne'ertheless 
Saw in it gleams of truthfulness, 
And thanked the Monk of Lauresheim. 

This they discussed in various mood ; 
Then in the silence that ensued 
Was heard a sharp and sudden sound 
As of a bowstring snapped in air ; 
And the Musician with a bound 
Sprang up in terror from his chair, 
And for a moment listening stood, 
Then strode across the room, and found 
His dear, his darling violin 
Still lying safe asleep within 
Its little cradle, like a child 
That gives a sudden cry of pain, 
And wakes to fall asleep again ; 
And as he looked at it and smiled, 
By the uncertain light beguiled, 
Despair ! two strings were broken il 
twain. 

While all lamented and made moan ; 
With many a sympathetic word 
As if the loss had been their own, 
Deeming the tones they might have heard 
Sweeter than they had heard before, 
They saw the Landlord at the door, 
The missing man, the portly Squire ! 
He had not entered, but he stood 
With both arms full of seasoned wood, 
To feed the much-devouring fire, 
That like a lion in a cage 
Lashed its long tail and roared with rage. 



270 



TALES OF A WAYSIDE INN 



The missing man ! Ah, yes, they said, 
Missing, but whither had he fled ? 
Where had he hidden himself away ? 
No farther than the barn or shed ; 
He had not hidden himself, nor fled ; 
How should he pass the rainy day 
But in his barn with hens and hay, 
Or mending harness, cart, or sled ? 
Now, haying come, he needs must stay 
And tell his tale a? well as they. 

The Landlord answered only : " These 

Are logs from the dead apple-trees 

Of the old orchard planted here 

By the first Howe of Sudbury. 

Nor oak nor maple has so clear 

A flame, or burns so quietly, 

Or leaves an ash so clean and white ; " 

Thinking by this to put aside 

The impending tale that terrified ; 

When suddenly, to his delight, 

The Theologian interposed, 

Saying that when the door was closed, 

And they had stopped that draft of cold, 

Unpleasant night air, he proposed 

To tell a tale world-wide apart 

From that the Student had just told ; 

World-wide apart, and yet akin, 

As showing that the human heart 

Beats on forever as of old, 

As well beneath the snow-white fold 

Of Quaker kerchief, as within 

Sendal or silk or cloth of gold, 

And without preface would begin. 

knd then the clamorous clock struck eight, 

Deliberate, with sonorous chime 

Slow measuring out the march of time, 

Like some grave Consul of Old Rome 

In Jupiter's temple driving home 

The nails that marked the year and 

date. 
Thus interrupted in his rhyme, 
The Theologian needs must wait ; 
But quoted Horace, where he sings 
The dire Necessity of things, 
That drives into the roofs sublime 
Of new-built houses of the great 
The adamantine nails of Fate. 

When ceased the little carillon 
To herald from its wooden tower 
The important transit of the hour, 
The Theologian hastened on, 
Content to be allowed at last 
To sing his Idyl of the Past. 



THE THEOLOGIAN'S TALE 
ELIZABETH 



" Ah, how short are the days ! How soon 
the night overtakes us ! 

In the old country the twilight is longer ; 
but here in the forest 

Suddenly comes the dark, with hardly a 
pause in its coming, 

Hardly a moment between the two lights, 
the day and the lamplight ; 

Yet how grand is the winter ! How spot- 
less the snow is, and perfect ! " 



Thus spake Elizabeth Haddon at night- 
fall to Hannah the housemaid, 

As in the farm-house kitchen, that served 
for kitchen and parlor, 

By the window she sat with her work, and 
looked on the landscape 

White as the great white sheet that Peter 
saw in his vision, 

By the four corners let down and descend- 
ing out of the heavens. 

Covered with snow were the forests of pine; 
and the fields and the meadows. 

Nothing was dark but the sky, and the dis- 
tant Delaware flowing 

Down from its native hills, a peaceful and 
bountiful river. 

Then with a smile on her lips made an- 
swer Hannah the housemaid : 

" Beautiful winter ! yea, the winter is beau- 
tiful, surely, 

If one could only walk like a fly with one's 
feet on the ceiling. 

But the great Delaware River is not like 
the Thames, as we saw it 

Out of our upper windows in Rotherhithe 
Street in the Borough, 

Crowded with masts and sails of vessels 
coming and going ; 

Here there is nothing but pines, with 
patches of snow on their branches. 

There is snow in the air, and see ! it is fall- 
ing already ; 

All the roads will be blocked, and I pity 
Joseph to-morrow, 

Breaking his way through the drifts, with 
his sled and oxen ; and then, too, 

How in all the world shall we get to Meet- 
ing on First-Day ? " 






THE THEOLOGIAN'S TALE 



271 



But Elizabeth checked her, and answered, 

mildly reproving : 
" Surely the Lord will provide ; for unto 

the snow He sayeth, 
Be thou on the earth, the good Lord sayeth ; 

He is it 
Giveth snow like wool, like ashes scatters 

the hoar-frost." 
So she folded her work and laid it away in 

her basket. 

Meanwhile Hannah the housemaid had 

closed and fastened the shutters, 
Spread the cloth, and lighted the lamp on 

the table, and placed there 
Plates and cups from the dresser, the brown 

rye loaf, and the butter 
Fresh from the dairy, and then, protecting 

her hand with a holder, 
Took from the crane in the chimney the 

steaming and simmering kettle, 
Poised it aloft in the air, and filled up the 

earthen teapot, 
Made in Delft, and adorned with quaint 

and wonderful figures. 

Then Elizabeth said, " Lo ! Joseph is 

long on his errand. 
I have sent him away with a hamper of food 

and of clothing 
For the poor in the village. A good lad 

and cheerful is Joseph ; 
In the right place is his heart, and his hand 

is ready and willing." 

Thus in praise of her servant she spake, 

and Hannah the housemaid 
Laughed with her eyes, as she listened, but 

governed her tongue, and was silent, 
While her mistress went on : " The house 

is far from the village ; 
We should be lonely here, were it not for 

Friends that in passing 
Sometimes tarry o'ernight, and make us 

glad by their coming." 

Thereupon answered Hannah the house- 
maid, the thrifty, the frugal : 

" Yea, they come and they tarry, as if thy 
house were a tavern ; 

Open to all are its doors, and they come 
and go like the pigeons 

In and out of the holes of the pigeon-house 
over the hayloft, 

Cooing and smoothing their feathers and 
basking themselves in the sunshine." 



But in meekness of spirit, and calmly, 

Elizabeth answered : 
" All I have is the Lord's, not mine to give 

or withhold it ; 
I but distribute his gifts to the poor, and to 

those of his people 
Who in journeyings often surrender their 

lives to his service. 
His, not mine, are the gifts, and only so far 

can I make them 
Mine, as in giving I add my heart to what- 
ever is given. 
Therefore my excellent father first built 

this house in the clearing ; 
Though he came not himself, I came ; for 

the Lord was my guidance, 
Leading me here for this service. We 

must not grudge, then, to others 
Ever the cup of cold water, or crumbs that 

fall from our table." 

Thus rebuked, for a season was silent the 

penitent housemaid ; 
And Elizabeth said in tones even sweeter 

and softer : 
" Dost thou remember, Hannah, the great 

May-Meeting in London, 
When I was still a child, how we sat in the 

silent assembly, 
Waiting upon the Lord in patient and pas- 
sive submission ? 
No one spake, till at length a young man, 

a stranger, John Estaugh, 
Moved by the Spirit, rose, as if he were 

John the Apostle, 
Speaking such words of power that they 

bowed our hearts, as a strong 

wind 
Bends the grass of the fields, or grain that 

is ripe for the sickle. 
Thoughts of him to-day have been oft borne 

inward upon me, 
Wherefore I do not know ; but strong is 

the feeling within me 
That once more I shall see a face I have 

never forgotten." 



E'en as she spake they beard the musical 

jangle of sleigh-bells, 
First far off, with a dreamy sound and faint 

in the distance, 
Then growing nearer and louder, and turn* 

ing into the farmyard, 



372 



TALES OF A WAYSIDE INN 



Till it stopped at the door, with sudden 

creaking of runners. 
Then there were voices heard as of two 

men talking together, 
And to herself, as she listened, upbraiding 

said Hannah the housemaid, 
"It is Joseph come back, and I wonder 

what stranger is with him." 

Down from its nail she took and lighted 

the great tin lantern 
Pierced with holes, and round, and roofed 

like the top of a lighthouse, 
And went forth to receive the coming guest 

at the doorway, 
Casting into the dark a network of glimmer 

and shadow 
Over the falling snow, the yellow sleigh, 

and the horses, 
And the forms of men, snow-covered, loom- 
ing gigantic. 
Then giving Joseph the lantern, she en- 
tered the house with the stranger. 
Youthful he was and tall, and his cheeks 

aglow with the night air ; 
A.nd as he entered, Elizabeth rose, and, going 

to meet him, 
Is if an unseen power had announced and 

preceded his presence, 
And he had come as one whose coming had 

long been expected, 
Quietly gave him her hand, and said, 

" Thou art welcome, John Estaugh." 
And the stranger replied, with staid and 

quiet behavior, 
u Dost thou remember me still, Elizabeth ? 

After so many 
Years have passed, it seemeth a wonderful 

thing that I find thee. 
Surely the hand of the Lord conducted me 

here to thy threshold. 
For as I journeyed along, and pondered 

alone and in silence 
On his ways, that are past finding out, I 

saw in the snow-mist, 
Seemingly weary with travel, a wayfarer, 

who by the wayside 
Paused and waited. Forthwith I remem- 
bered Queen Candace's eunuch, 
How on the way that goes down from 

Jerusalem unto Gaza, 
Reading Esaias the Prophet, he journeyed, 

and^spake uuto Philip, 
Praying him to come up and sit in his 

chariot with him. 



So I greeted the man, and he mounted the 

sledge beside me, 
And as we talked on the way he told me of 

thee and thy homestead, 
How, being led by the light of the Spirit, 

that never deceiveth, 
Full of zeal for the work of the Lord, thou 

hadst come to this country. 
And I remembered thy name, and thy 

father and mother in England, 
And on my journey have stopped to see 

thee, Elizabeth Haddon, 
Wishing to strengthen thy hand in the 

labors of love thou art doing." 

And Elizabeth answered with confident 

voice, and serenely 
Looking into his face with her innocent 

eyes as she answered, 
" Surely the hand of the Lord is in it ; his 

Spirit hath led thee 
Out of the darkness and storm to the light 

and peace of my fireside." 

Then, with stamping of feet the door 
was opened, and Joseph 

Entered, bearing the lantern, and, care- 
fully blowing the light out, 

Hung it up on its nail, and all sat down to 
their supper ; 

For underneath that roof was no distinction 
of persons, 

But one family only, one heart, one hearth, 
and one household. 

When the supper was ended they drew 
their chairs to the fireplace, 

Spacious, open-hearted, profuse of flame 
and of firewood, 

Lord of forests unfelled, and not a gleaner ' 
of fagots, 

Spreading its arms to embrace with inex- ■ 
haustible bounty 

All who fled from the cold, exultant, laugh- 
ing at winter ! 

Only Hannah the housemaid was busy ia 
clearing the table, 

Coming and going, and bustling about in 
closet and chamber. 

Then Elizabeth told her story again to 
John Estaugh, 
Going far back to the past, to the earlj 
days of her childhood ; 



THE THEOLOGIAN'S TALE 



273 



How she had waited and watched, in all 
her doubts and besetments, 

Comforted with the extendings and holy, 
sweet inflowings 

Of the spirit of love, till the voice impera- 
tive sounded, 

And she obeyed the voice, and cast in her 
lot with her people 

Here in the desert land, and God would 
provide for the issue. 

Meanwhile Joseph sat with folded hands, 

and demurely 
Listened, or seemed to listen, and in the 

silence that followed 
Nothing was heard for a while but the step 

of Hannah the housemaid 
Walking the floor overhead, and setting the 

chambers in order. 
And Elizabeth said, with a smile of com- 
passion, " The maiden 
Hath a light heart in her breast, but her 

feet are heavy and awkward." 
Inwardly Joseph laughed, but governed his 

tongue, and was silent. 

Then came the hour of sleep, death's 
counterfeit, nightly rehearsal 

Of the great Silent Assembly, the Meeting 
of shadows, where no man 

Speaketh, but all are still, and the peace 
and rest are unbroken ! 

Silently over that house the blessing of 
slumber descended. 

But when the morning dawned, and the sun 
uprose in his splendor, 

Breaking his way through clouds that 
encumbered his path in the hea- 
vens, 

Joseph was seen with his sled and oxen 
breaking a pathway 

Through the drifts of snow ; the horses 
already were harnessed, 

And John Estaugh was standing and taking 
leave at the threshold, 

Saying that he should return at the Meet- 
ing in May ; while above them 

Hannah the housemaid, the homely, was 
looking out of the attic, 

Laughing aloud at Joseph, then suddenly 
closing the casement, 

As the bird in a cuckoo-clock peeps out of 
its window, 

Then disappears again, and closes the 
shutter behind it. 



Ill 



Now was the winter gone, and the snow ; 

and Robin the Redbreast 
Boasted on bush and tree it was he, it was 

he and no other 
That had covered with leaves the Babes in 

the Wood, and blithely 
All the birds sang with him, and little cared 

for his boasting, 
Or for his Babes in the Wood, or the Cruel 

Uncle, and only 
Sang for the mates they had chosen, and 

cared for the nests they were build- 
ing. 
With them, but more sedately and meekly, 

Elizabeth Haddon 
Sang in her inmost heart, but her lips were 

silent and songless. 
Thus came the lovely spring with a rush of 

blossoms and music, 
Flooding the earth with flowers, and the 

air with melodies vernaL 

xnen it came to pass, one pleasant morn- 
ing, that slowly 

Up the road there came a cavalcade, as of 
pilgrims, 

Men and women, wending their way to the 
Quarterly Meeting 

In the neighboring town ; and with them 
came riding John Estaugh. 

At Elizabeth's door they stopped to rest, 
and alighting 

Tasted the currant wine, and the bread of 
ryo, and the honey 

Brought from the hives, that stood by the 
sunny wall of the garden ; 

Then remounted their horses, refreshed, 
and continued their journey, 

And Elizabeth with them, and Joseph, and 
Hannah the housemaid. 

But, as they started, Elizabeth lingered a 
little, and leaning 

Over her horse's neck, in a whisper said to 
John Estaugh : 

" Tarry awhile behind, for I have some- 
thing to tell thee, 

Not to be spoken lightly, nor in the pres- 
ence of others ; 

Them it concerneth not, only thee and me 
it concerneth." 

And they rode slowly along through the 
woods, conversing together. 



li 



2?4 



TALES OF A WAYSIDE INN 



It was a pleasure to breathe the fragrant 

air of the forest ; 
It was a pleasure to live on that bright 

and happy May morning ! 

Then Elizabeth said, though still with a 

certain reluctance, 
As if impelled to reveal a secret she fain 

would have guarded : 
" I will no longer conceal what is laid upon 

me to tell thee ; 
I have received from the Lord a charge to 

love thee, John Estaugh." 

And John Estaugh made answer, sur- 
prised at the words she had spo- 
ken, 

"Pleasant to me are thy converse, thy 
ways, thy meekness of spirit ; 

Pleasant thy frankness of speech, and thy 
soul's immaculate whiteness, 

Love without dissimulation, a holy and in- 
ward adorning. 

But I have yet no light to lead me, no voice 
to direct me. 

When the Lord's work is done, and the 
toil and the labor completed 

He hath appointed to me, I will gather 
into the stillness 

Of my own heart awhile, and listen and 
wait for his guidance." 

Then Elizabeth said, not troubled nor 

wounded in spirit, 
" So is it best, John Estaugh. We will not 

speak of it further. 
[t hath been laid upon me to tell thee this, 

for to-morrow 
Thou art going away, across the sea, and 

I know not 
When I shall see thee more ; but if the 

Lord hath decreed it, 
Thou wilt return again to seek me here and 

to find me." 
And they rode onward in silence, and en- 
tered the town with the others. 



IV 



Ships that pass in the night, and speak each 

other in passing, 
Duly a signal shown and a distant voice in 

the darkness ; 



So on the ocean of life, we pass and speals 

one another, 
Only a look and a voice, then darkness 

again and a silence. 

Now went on as of old the quiet life of 
the homestead. 

Patient and unrepining Elizabeth labored, 
in all things 

Mindful not of herself, but bearing the bur- 
dens of others, 

Always thoughtful and kind and untrou- 
bled ; and Hannah the housemaid 

Diligent early and late, and rosy with 
washing and scouring, 

Still as of old disparaged the eminent mer- 
its of Joseph, 

And was at times reproved for her light 
and frothy behavior, 

For her shy looks, and her careless words, 
and her evil surmisings, 

Being pressed down somewhat, like a cart 
with sheaves overladen, 

As she would sometimes say to Joseph, 
quoting the Scriptures. 

Meanwhile John Estaugh departed across 

the sea, and departing 
Carried hid in his heart a secret sacred and 

precious, 
Filling its chambers with fragrance, and 

seeming to him in its sweetness 
Mary's ointment of spikenard, that filled 

all the house with its odor. 
O lost days of delight, that are wasted in 

doubting and waiting ! 
O lost hours and days in which we might 

have been happy ! 
But the light shone at last, and guided his 

wavering footsteps, 
And at last came the voice, imperative. 

questionless, certain. 

Then John Estaugh came back o'er the 

sea for the gift that was offered, 
Better than houses and lands, the gift of a 

woman's affection. 
And on the First-Day that followed, he rose 

in the Silent Assembly, 
Holding in his strong hand a hand that 

trembled a little, 
Promising to be kind and true and faithful 

in all things. 
Such were the marriage rites of John and 

Elizabeth Estaugh. 



THE SICILIAN'S TALE 



*7S 



And not otherwise Joseph, the honest, 

the diligent servant, 
Sped in his bashful wooing with homely 

Hannah the housemaid ; 
For when he asked her the question, she 

answered, " Nay ; " and then added : 
" But thee may make believe, and see what 

will come of it, Joseph." 



INTERLUDE 

" A pleasant and a winsome tale," 

The Student said, " though somewhat pale 

And quiet in its coloring, 

As if it caught its tone and air 

From the gray suits that Quakers wear ; 

Yet worthy of some German bard, 

Hebel, or Voss, or Eberhard, 

Who love of humble themes to sing, 

In humble verse ; but no more true 

Than was the tale I told to you." 

The Theologian made reply, 

And with some warmth, " That I deny ; 

'T is no invention of my own, 

But something well and widely known 

To readers of a riper age, 

Writ by the skilful hand that wrote 

The Indian tale of Hobomok, 

And Philothea's classic page. 

I found it like a waif afloat, 

Or dulse uprooted from its rock, 

On the swift tides that ebb and flow 

In daily papers, and at flood 

Bear freighted vessels to and fro, 

But later, when the ebb is low, 

Leave a long waste of sand and mud." 

" It matters little," quoth the Jew ; 
" The cloak of truth is lined with lies, 
Sayeth some proverb old and wise ; 
And Love is master of all arts, 
And puts it into human hearts 
The strangest things to say and do." 

And here the controversy closed 

Abruptly, ere 't was well begun ; 

For the Sicilian interposed 

With, " Lordlings, listen, every one 

That listen may, unto a tale 

That 's merrier than the nightingale ; 

A tale that cannot boast, forsooth, 

A single rag or shred of truth ; 

That does not leave the mind in doubt 



As to the with it or without ; 
A naked falsehood and absurd 
As mortal ever told or heard. 
Therefore I tell it ; or, maybe, 
Simply because it pleases me?" 



THE SICILIAN'S TALE 



THE MONK OF CASAL-MAGGIORE 

Once on a time, some centuries ago, 

In the hot sunshine two Franciscan friars 
Wended their weary way, with footsteps 
slow, 
Back to their convent, whose white walls 
and spires 
Gleamed on the hillside like a patch of 
snow ; 
Covered with dust they were, and torn 
by briers, 
And bore like sumpter-mules upon their 

backs 
The badge of poverty, their beggar's sacks. 

The first was Brother Anthony, a spare 
And silent man, with pallid cheeks and 
thin, 
Much given to vigils, penance, fasting, 
prayer, 
Solemn and gray, and worn with disci- 
pline, 
As if his body but white ashes were, 

Heaped on the living coals that glowed 
within ; 
A simple monk, like many of his day, 
Whose instinct was to listen and obey. 

A different man was Brother Timothy, 
Of larger mould and of a coarser paste ; 

A rubicund and stalwart monk was he, 
Broad in the shoulders, broader in the 
waist, 

Who often filled the dull refectory 

With noise by which the convent was dis- 
graced, 

But to the mass-book gave but little heed, 

By reason he had never learned to read. 

Now, as they passed the outskirts of a 
wood, 
They saw, with mingled pleasure and 
surprise, 
Fast tethered to a tree an ass, that stood 
Lazily winking his large, limpid eyes. 



276 



TALES OF A WAYSIDE INN 



The farmer Gilbert, of that neighborhood, 
His owner was, who, looking for sup- 
plies 
Of fagots, deeper in the wood had strayed, 
Leaving his beast to ponder in the shade. 

As soon as Brother Timothy espied 

The patient animal, he said : " Good- 
lack ! 
Thus for our needs doth Providence pro- 
vide ; 
We '11 lay our wallets on the creature's 
back." 
This being done, he leisurely untied 

From head and neck the halter of the 
jack, 
And put it round his own, and to the tree 
Stood tethered fast as if the ass were he. 

^.nd, bursting forth into a merry laugh, 
He cried to Brother Anthony : " Away ! 

And drive the ass before you with your 
staff ; 
And when you reach the convent you 
may say 

You left me at a farm, half tired and half 
111 with a fever, for a night and day, 

And that the farmer lent this ass to bear 

Our wallets, that are heavy with good fare." 

Now Brother Anthony, who knew the 
pranks 
Of Brother Timothy, would not persuade 
Or reason with him on his quirks and 
cranks, 
But, being obedient, silently obeyed ; 
And, smiting with his staff the ass's flanks, 
Drove him before him over hill and 
glade, 
Safe with his provend to the convent gate, 
Leaving poor Brother Timothy to his fate. 

Then Gilbert, laden with fagots for his fire, 
Forth issued from the wood, and stood 
aghast 
To see the ponderous body of the friar 
Standing where he had left his donkey 
last. 
Trembling he stood, and dared not venture 
nigher, 
But stared, and gaped, and crossed him- 
self full fast ; 
For, being credulous and of little wit, 
He thought it was some demon from the 
pit. 



While speechless and bewildered thus he 
gazed, 
And dropped his load of fagots on the 
ground, 
Quoth Brother Timothy : " Be not amazed 
That where you left a donkey should be 
found 
A poor Franciscan friar, half-starved and 
crazed, 
Standing demure and with a baiter 
bound ; 
But set me free, and hear the piteous story 
Of Brother Timothy of Casal-Maggiore. 



. 



" I am a sinful man, although you see 

I wear the consecrated cowl and cape ; 
You never owned an ass, but you owned 
me, 
Changed and transformed from my own 
natural shape 
.all for the deadly sin of gluttony, 

From which I could not otherwise es- 
cape, 
Than by this penance, dieting on grass, 
And being worked and beaten as an ass. 

" Think of the ignominy I endured ; 

Think of the miserable life I led, 
The toil and blows to which I was inured, 

My wretched lodging in a windy shed, 
My scanty fare so grudgingly procured, 

The damp and musty straw that formed 
my bed ! 
But, having done this penance for my sins, 
My life as man and monk again begins." 



The simple Gilbert, hearing words liki 
these, 
Was conscience-stricken, and fell dowi 
apace 
Before the friar upon his bended knees, 
And with a suppliant voice implored his 
grace ; 
And the good monk, now very much at 
ease, 
Granted him pardon with a smiling face, 
Nor could refuse to be that night his guest. 
It being late, and he in need of rest. 

Upon a hillside, where the olive thrives, 
With figures painted on its whitewashed 
walls, 
The cottage stood ; and near the humming 
hives 
Made murmurs as of far-off waterfalls ; 



THE SICILIAN'S TALE 



277 



A pWe where those who love secluded 

lives 
Might live content, and, free from noise 

and brawls, 
Like (jlaudian's Old Man of Verona here 
Measure by fruits the slow-revolving year. 

And, coming to this cottage of content, 
They found his children, and the buxom 
wench 

His wife, Dame Cicely, and his father, bent 
With years and labor, seated on a bench, 

Repeating over some obscure event 

In the old wars of Milanese and French ; 

All welcomed the Franciscan, with a sense 

Of sacred awe and humble reverence. 

When Gilbert told them what had come to 
pass, 
How beyond question, cavil, or surmise, 
Good Brother Timothy had been their ass, 
You should have seen the wonder in 
their eyes ; 
You should have heard them cry " Alas ! 
alas!" 
Have heard their lamentations and their 
sighs ! 
For all believed the story, and began 
To see a saint in this afflicted man. 

Forthwith there was prepared a grand 
repast, 
To satisfy the craving of the friar 
After so rigid and prolonged a fast ; 

The bustling housewife stirred the kitch- 
en fire ; 
Then her two barn-yard fowls, her best and 
last, 
Were put to death, at her express desire, 
And served up with a salad in a bowl, 
And flasks of country wine to crown the 
whole. 

It would not be believed should I repeat 

How hungry Brother Timothy appeared ; 
It was a pleasure but to see him eat, 

His white teeth flashing through his 
russet beard, 
His face aglow and flushed with wine and 
meat, 
His roguish eyes that rolled and laughed 
and leered ! 
Lord ! how he drank the blood-red country 

wine 
4s if the village vintage were divine I 



And all the while he talked without sur- 
cease, 
And told his merry tales with jovial glee 
That never flagged, but rather did in- 
crease, 
And laughed aloud as if insane were he, 
And wagged his red beard, matted like a 
fleece, 
And cust such glances at Dame Cicely 
That Gilbert now grew angry with his guest, 
And thus in words his rising wrath ex= 
pressed. 

" Good father," said he, " easily we see 
How needful in some persons, and how 
right, 
Mortification of the flesh may be. 

The indulgence you have given it to- 
night, 
After long penance, clearly proves to me 
Your strength against temptation is but 
slight, 
And shows the dreadful peril you are in 
Of a relapse into your deadly sin. 

" To-morrow morning, with the rising sun>, 

Go back unto your convent, nor refrain 
From fasting and from scourging, for you 
run 
Great danger to become an ass again, 
Since monkish flesh and asinine are one *, 
Therefore be wise, nor longer here re. 
main, 
Unless you wish the scourge should be ap- 
plied 
By other hands, that will not spare your 
hide." 

When this the monk had heard, his color 
fled 
And then raturned, like lightning in the 
air, 
Till he was all one blush from foot to 
head, 
And even the bald spot in his russet hair 
Turned from its usual pallor to bright 
red ! 
The old man was asleep upon his chair. 
Then all retired, and sank into the deep 
And helpless imbecility of sleep. 

They slept until the dawn of day drew 
near, 
Till the cock should have crowed, but 
did not crow, 



278 



TALES OF A WAYSIDE INN 



For they had slain the shining chanticleer 
And eaten him for supper, as you know. 

The monk was up betimes and of good 
cheer, 
And, having breakfasted, made haste to 

go, 
As if he heard the distant matin bell, 
And had but little time to say farewell. 

Fresh was the morning as the breath of 
kine ; 

Odors of herbs commingled with the 
sweet 
Balsamic exhalations of the pine ; 

A haze was in the air presaging heat ; 
Uprose the sun above the Apennine, 

And all the misty valleys at its feet 
Were full of the delirious song of birds, 
Voices of men, and bells, and low of herds. 

All this to Brother Timothy was naught ; 

He did not care for scenery, nor here 
His busy fancy found the thing it sought ; 
But when he saw the convent walls ap- 
pear, 
And smoke from kitchen chimneys upward 
caught 
And whirled aloft into the atmosphere, 
He quickened his slow footsteps, like a 

beast 
That scents the stable a league off at least. 

And as he entered through the 'convent 
gate 
He saw there in the court the ass, who 
stood 
Twirling his ears about, and seemed to 
wait, 
Just as he found him waiting in the 
wood ; 
And told the Prior that, to alleviate 

The daily labors of the brotherhood, 
The owner, being a man of means and 

thrift, 
Bestowed him on the convent as a gift. 

And thereupon the Prior for many days 
Revolved this serious matter in his 
mind, 
And turned it over many different ways, 
Hoping that some safe issue he might 
find ; 
But stood in fear of what the world would 
say, 
If he accepted presents of this kind, 



Employing beasts of burden for the packs 
That lazy monks should carry on theil 
backs. 

Then, to avoid all scandal of the sort, 

And stop the mouth of cavil, he decreed 
That he would cut the tedious matter 
short, 
And sell the ass with all convenient 
speed, 
Thus saving the expense of his support, 
And hoarding something for a time of 
need. 
So he despatched him to the neighboring 

Fair, 
And freed himself from cumber and from 



It happened now by chance, as some 
might say, 

Others perhaps would call it destiny, 
Gilbert was at the Fair ; and heard a bray, 

And nearer came, and saw that it was 
he, 
And whispered in his ear, " Ah, lackaday ! 

Good father, the rebellious flesh, I see, 
Has changed you back into an ass again, 
And all my admonitions were in vain." 

The ass, who felt this breathing in his ear, 
Did not turn round to look, but shook his 
head, 
As if he were not pleased these words to 
hear, 
And contradicted all that had been said. 
And this made Gilbert cry in voice more 
clear, 
" I know you well ; your hair is russet* 
red ; 
Do not deny it ; for you are the same 
Franciscan friar, and Timothy by name." 

The ass, though now the secret had come out, 
Was obstinate, and shook his head 
again ; 
Until a crowd was gathered round about 
To hear this dialogue between the 
twain ; 
And raised their voices in a noisy shout 
When Gilbert tried to make the matter 
plain, 
And flouted him and mocked him all day 

long 
With laughter and with jibes and scraps 
of song. 



INTERLUDE 



279 



u If this be Brother Timothy," they cried, 
" Buy him, and feed him ou the teuderest 
grass ; 
Thou canst not do too much for one so 
tried 
As to be twice transformed into an ass." 
So simple Gilbert bought him, and untied 
His halter, and o'er mountain and mo- 
rass 
He led him homeward, talking as he went 
Of good behavior and a mind content. 

The children saw them coming, and ad- 
vanced, 
Shouting with joy, and hung about his 
neck, — 
Not Gilbert's, but the ass's, — round him 
danced, 
And wove green garlands wherewithal 
to deck 
His sacred person ; for again it chanced 
Their childish feelings, without rein or 
check, 
Could not discriminate in any way 
A donkey from a friar of Orders Gray. 

I O Brother Timothy," the children said, 
11 You have come back to us just as 
before ; 
We were afraid, and thought that you were 
dead, 
And we should never see you any more." 
And then they kissed the white star on his 
head, 
That like a birth-mark or a badge he 
wore, 
And patted him upon the neck and face, 
And said a thousand things with childish 
grace. 

Thenceforward and forever he was known 
As Brother Timothy, and led alway 

A life of luxury, till he had grown 

Ungrateful, being stuffed with corn and 
hay, 

And very vicious. Then in angry tone, 
Rousing himself, poor Gilbert said one 
day, 

" When simple kindness is misunderstood 

A little flagellation may do good." 

His many vices need not here be told ; 

Among them was a habit that he had 
•Of flinging up his heels at young and old, 

Breaking his Salter, running off like mad 



O'er pasture-lands and meadow, wood and 

wold, 
And other misdemeanors quite as bad ; 
But worst of all was breaking from his 

shed 
At night, and ravaging the cabbage-bed. 

So Brother Timothy went back once more 

To his old life of labor and distress ; 
Was beaten worse than he had beer 
before ; 
And now, instead of comfort and ca- 
ress, 
Came labors manifold and trials sore ; 
And as his toils increased his food grew 
less, 
Until at last the great consoler, Death, 
Ended his many sufferings with his breath. 

Great was the lamentation when he died ; 

And mainly that he died impenitent ; 
Dame Cicely bewailed, the children cried, 

The old man still remembered the event 
In the French war, and Gilbert magni- 
fied 

His many virtues, as he came and went, 
And said : " Heaven pardon Brother Tim.. 

othy, 
And keep us from the sin of gluttony." 



INTERLUDE 

" Signor Luigi," said the Jew, 
When the Sicilian's tale was told, 

" The were-wolf is a legend old, 
But the were-ass is something new, 
And yet for one I think it true. 
The days of wonder have not ceased ; 
If there are beasts in forms of men, 
As sure it happens now and then, 
Why may not man become a beast, 
In way of punishment at least ? 

" But this I will not now discuss ; 
I leave the theme, that we may thus 
Remain within the realm of song. 
The story that I told before, 
Though not acceptable to all, 
At least you did not find too long. 
I beg you, let me try again, 
With something in a different vein> 
Before you bid the curtain fall. 
Meanwhile keep watch upon the d<?oj. 
Nor let the Landlord leave his chair, 



28o 



TALES OF A WAYSIDE INN 



Lest he should vanish into air, 
And so elude our search once more.' 

Thus saying, from his lips he blew 
A little cloud of perfumed breath, 
And then, as if it were a clew- 
To lead his footsteps safely through, 
Besran his tale as followeth. 



THE SPANISH JEW'S SECOND 
TALE 

SCANDERBEG 

The battle is fought and won 
By King Ladislaus, the Hun, 
In fire of hell and death's frost, 
On the day of Pentecost. 
And in rout before his path 
From the field of battle red 
Flee all that are not dead 
Of the army of Amurath. 

In the darkness of the night 
Iskander, the pride and boast 
Of that mighty Othman host, 
With his routed Turks, takes flight 
From the battle fought and lost 
On the day of Pentecost ; 
Leaving behind him dead 
The army of Amurath, 
The vanguard as it led, 
The rearguard as it fled, 
Mown down in the bloody swath 
Of the battle's aftermath. 

But he cared not for Hospodars, 
Nor for Baron or Voivode, 
As on through the night he rode 
And gazed at the fateful stars, 
That were shining overhead ; 
But smote his steed with his staff, 
And smiled to himself, and said : 
* 5 This is the time to laugh." 

In the middle of the night, 
In a halt of the hurrying flight, 
There came a Scribe of the King 
Wearing his signet ring, 
And said in a voice severe : 
K This is the first dark blot 
On thy name, George Castriot ! 
Alas ! why art thou here, 
And the army of Amurath slain, 
And left on the battle plain ? " 



And Iskander answered and said : 
" They lie on the bloody sod 
By the hoofs of horses trod ; 
But this was the decree 
Of the watchers overhead ; 
For the war belongeth to God, 
And in battle who are we, 
Who are we, that shall withstand 
The wind of his lifted hand ? " 

Then he bade them bind with chains 
This man of books and brains ; 
And the Scribe said : " What misdeed 
Have I done, that, without need, 
Thou doest to me this thing ? " 
And Iskander answering 
Said unto him : " Not one 
Misdeed to me hast thou done ; 
But for fear that thou shouldst run 
And hide thyself from me, 
Have I done this unto thee. 

" Now write me a writing, O Scribe* 

And a blessing be on thy tribe ! 

A writing sealed with thy ring, 

To King Amurath's Pasha 

In the city of Croia, 

The city moated and walled, 

That he surrender the same 

In the name of my master, the King 

For what is writ in his name 

Can never be recalled." 

And the Scribe bowed low in dread r 

And unto Iskander said : 

" Allah is great and just, 

But we are as ashes and dust ; 

How shall I do this thing, 

When I know that my guilty head 

Will be forfeit to the King ? " 

Then swift as a shooting star 

The curved and shining blade 

Of Iskander's scimetar 

From its sheath, with jewels bright 

Shot, as he thundered : " Write ! " 

And the trembling Scribe obeyed, 

And wrote in the fitful glare 

Of the bivouac fire apart, 

With the chill of the midnight air 

On his forehead white and bare, 

And the chill of death in his heart 

Then again Iskander cried : 
w Now follow whither I ride, 



INTERLUDE 



28 1 



For here thou must not stay. 
Thou shalt be as my dearest friend, 
And honors without end 
Shall surround thee on every side, 
And attend thee night and day." 
But the sullen Scribe replied : 
" Our pathways here divide ; 
Mine leadeth not thy way." 

And even as he spoke 

Fell a sudden scimetar stroke, 

When no one else was near ; 

And the Scribe sank to the ground, 

As a stone, pushed from the brink 

Of a black pool, might sink 

With a sob and disappear ; 

And no one saw the deed ; 

And in the stillness around 

No sound was heard but the sound 

Of the hoofs of Iskander's steed, 

As forward he sprang with a bound. 

Then onward he rode and afar, 
With scarce three hundred men, 
Through river and forest and fen, 
O'er the mountains of Argentar ; 
And his heart was merry within, 
When he crossed the river Drin, 
And saw in the gleam of the morn 
The White Castle Ak-Hissar, 
The city Croia called, 
The city moated and walled, 
The city where he was born, — 
And above it the morning star. 

Then his trumpeters in the van 

On their silver bugles blew, 

And in crowds about him ran 

Albanian and Turkoman, 

That the sound together drew. 

And he feasted with his friends, 

And when they were warm with wine, 

He said : " O friends of mine, 

Behold what fortune sends, 

And what the fates design ! 

King Amurath commands 

That ray father's wide domain, 

This city and all its lands, 

Shall be given to me again." 

Then to the Castle White 
He rode in regal state, 
And entered in at the gate 
In all his arms bedight. 
And gave to the Pasha 



Who ruled in Croia 
The writing of the King, 
Sealed with his signet ring. 
And the Pasha bowed his head, 
And after a silence said : 
" Allah is just and great ! 
I yield to the will divine, 
The city and lands are thine ; 
Who shall contend with fate ? " 

Anon from the castle walls 

The crescent banner falls, 

And the crowd beholds instead, 

Like a portent in the sky, 

Iskander's banner fly, 

The Black Eagle with double head ; 

And a shout ascends on high, 

For men's souls are tired of the Turks. 

And their wicked ways and works, 

That have made of Ak-Hissar 

A city of the plague ; 

And the loud, exultant cry 

That echoes wide and far 

Is : " Long live Scanderbeg 1 " 

It was thus Iskander came 

Once more unto his own ; 

And the tidings, like the flame 

Of a conflagration blown 

By the winds of summer, ran, 

Till the land was in a blaze, 

And the cities far and near, 

Sayeth Ben Joshua Ben Meir, 

In his Book of the Words of the Dayv 

" Were taken as a man 

Would take the tip of his ear." 



INTERLUDE 

" Now that is after my own heart," 
The Poet cried ; " one understands 
Your swarthy hero Scanderbeg, 
Gauntlet on hand and boot on leg, 
And skilled in every warlike art, 
Riding through his Albanian lands, 
And following the auspicious star 
That shone for him o'er Ak-Hissar." 

The Theologian added here 

His word of praise not less sincere, 

Although he ended with a jibe ; 

" The hero of romance and song 

Was born," he said, " to right the wrong \ 

And I approve ; but all the same 



ZS2 



TALES OF A WAYSIDE INN 



That bit of treason with the Scribe 
Adds nothing to your hero's fame." 

The Student praised the good old times, 
And liked the canter of the rhymes, 
That had a hoofbeat in their sound ; 
But longed some further word to hear 
Of the old chronicler Ben Meir, 
And where his volume might be found. 

The tall Musician walked the room 
With folded arms and gleaming eyes, 
As if he saw the Vikings rise, 
Gigantic shadows in the gloom ; 
And much he talked of their emprise 
And meteors seen in Northern skies, 
And Heimdal's horn, and day of doom. 
But the Sicilian laughed again ; 
" This is the time to laugh," he said, 
For the whole story he well knew 
Was an invention of the Jew, 
Spun from the cobwebs in his brain, 
And of the same bright scarlet thread 
As was the Tale of Kambalu. 

Only the Landlord spake no word ; 
'T was doubtful whether he had heard 
The tale at all, so full of care 
Was he of his impending fate, 
That, like the sword of Damocles, 
Above his head hung blank and bare, 
Suspended by a single hair, 
So that he could not sit at ease, 
But sighed and looked disconsolate, 
And shifted restless in his chair, 
Revolving how he might evade 
The blow of the descending blade. 

The Student came to his relief 
By saying in his easy way 
To the Musician : " Calm your grief, 
My fair Apollo of the North, 
Balder the Beautiful and so forth ; 
Although your magic lyre or lute 
With broken strings is lying mute, 
Still you can tell some doleful tale 
Of shipwreck in a midnight gale, 
Or something of the kind to suit 
The mood that we are in to-night 
For what is marvellous and strange ; 
So give your nimble fancy range, 
And we will follow in its flight." 

But the Musician shook his head ; 
*' No tale I tell to-night," he said, 



" While my poor instrument lies there 9 
Even as a child with vacant stare 
Lies in its little coffin dead." 

Yet, being urged, he said at last : 

" There comes to me out of the Past 

A voice, whose tones are sweet and wild, 

Singing a song almost divine, 

And with a tear in every line ; 

An ancient ballad, that my nurse 

Sang to me when I was a child, 

In accents tender as the verse ; 

And sometimes wept, and sometimes smiled 

While singing it, to see arise 

The look of wonder in my eyes, 

And feel my heart with terror beat. 

This simple ballad I retain 

Clearly imprinted on my brain, 

And as a tale will now repeat." 



THE MUSICIAN'S TALE 

THE MOTHER'S GHOST 

Svend Dyring he rideth adown the glade ; 

/ myself was young ! 
There he hath wooed him so winsome a 
maid ; 

Fair words gladden so many a heart. 

Together were they for seven years, 
And together children six were theirs. 

Then came Death abroad through the land. 
And blighted the beautiful lily-wand. 

Svend Dyring he rideth adown the glade, 
And again hath he wooed him another maid. 

He hath wooed him a maid and brought 

home a bride, 
But she was bitter and full of pride. 

When she came driving into the yard, 
There stood the six children weeping sd 
hard. 

There stood the small children with sorrow 

ful heart ; 
From before her feet she thrust them apart 

She gave to them neither ale nor bread ; 
"Ye shall suffer hunger and hate," she 
said. 



INTERLUDE 



283 



She took from them their quilts of blue, 
And said : " Ye shall lie on the straw we 
strew." 

She took from them the great waxlight : 
" Now ye shall lie in the dark at night." 

In the evening late they cried with cold ; 
The mother heard it under the mould. 

The woman heard it the earth below : 
" To my little children I must go." 

She standeth before the Lord of all : 

" And may I go to my children small ? " 

tohe prayed him so long, and would not 

cease, 
Until he bade her depart in peace. 

" At cock-crow thou shalt return again ; 
Longer thou shalt not there remain ! " 

She girded up her sorrowful bones, 
A.nd rifted the walls and the marble 
stones. 

As through the village she flitted by, 
The watch-dogs howled aloud to the sky. 

When she came to the castle gate, 
There stood her eldest daughter in wait. 

" Why standest thou here, dear daughter 

mine ? 
How fares it with brothers and sisters 

thine ? " 

" Never art thou mother of mine, 
For my mother was both fair and fine. 

" My mother was white, with cheeks of 

red, 
But thou art pale, and like to the dead." 

u How should I be fair and fine ? 

I have been dead ; pale cheeks are mine. 

" How should I be white and red, 
So long, so long have I been dead ? " 

When she came in at the chamber door, 
There stood the small children weeping 
sore. 



One she braided, another she brushed, 
The third she lifted, the fourth she hushed. 

The fifth she took on her lap and pressed, 
As if she would suckle it at her breast. 

Then to her eldest daughter said she, 
" Do thou bid Svend Dyring come hithe2 
to me." 

Into the chamber when he came 

She spake to him in anger and shame. 

" I left behind me both ale and bread ; 
My children hunger and are not fed. 

" I left behind me quilts of blue ; 
My children lie on the straw ye strew. 

" I left behind me the great waxlight ; 
My children lie in the dark at night. 

" If I come again unto your hall, 
As cruel a fate shall you befall ! 

" Now crows the cock with feathers red \ 
Back to the earth must all the dead. 

" Now crows the cock with feathers swart ; 
The gates of heaven fly wide apart. 

" Now crows the cock with feathers white ; 
I can abide no longer to-night." 

Whenever they heard the watch-dogs wail. 
They gave the children bread and ale. 

Whenever they heard the watch-dogs bay, 
They feared lest the dead were on their 
way. 

Whenever they heard the watch-dogs bark, 

/ myself was young I 
They feared the dead out there in the 
dark. 

Fair words gladden so many a heart. 



INTERLUDE 

Touched by the pathos of these rhyme 
The Theologian said : " All praise 
Be to the ballads of old times 
And to the bards of simple ways, 



284 



TALES OF A WAYSIDE INN 



Who walked with Nature hand in hand, 
Whose country was their Holy Land, 
Whose singing robes were homespun brown 
From looms of their own native town, 
Which they were not ashamed to wear, 
And not of silk or sendal gay, 
Nor decked with fanciful array 
Of cockle-shells from Outre-Mer." 

To whom the Student answered ; " Yes ; 
All praise and honor ! 1 confess 
That bread and ale, home-baked, home- 
brewed, 
Are wholesome and nutritious food, 
But not enough for all our needs ; 
Poets — the best of them — are birds 
Of passage ; where their instinct leads 
They range abroad for thoughts and words, 
And from all climes bring home the seeds 
That germinate in flowers or weeds. 
They are not fowls in barnyards born 
To cackle o'er a grain of corn ; 
And, if you shut the horizon down 
To the small limits of their town, 
What do you do but degrade your bard 
Till he at last becomes as one 
Who thinks the all-encircling sun 
Rises and sets in his back yard ? " 

The Theologian said again : 
" It may be so ; yet I maintain 
That what is native still is best, 
And little care I for the rest. 
'T is a long story ; time would fail 
To tell it, and the hour is late ; 
We will not waste it in debate, 
But listen to our Landlord's tale." 

And thus the sword of Damocles 
Descending not by slow degrees, 
But suddenly, on the Landlord fell, 
Who blushing, and with much demur 
And many vain apologies, 
Plucking up heart, began to tell 
The Rhyme of one Sir Christopher. 



THE LANDLORD'S TALE 

THE RHYME OF SIR CHRISTOPHER 

It was Sir Christopher Gardiner, 
Knight of the Holy Sepulchre, 
From Merry England over the sea, 
Who stepped upon this continent 



As if his august presence lent 
A glory to the colony. 

You should have seen him in the street 
Of the little Boston of Winthrop's time, 
His rapier dangling at his feet, 
Doublet and hose and boots complete, 
Prince Rupert hat with ostrich plume, 
Gloves that exhaled a faint perfume, 
Luxuriant curls and air sublime, 
And superior manners now obsolete ! 

He had a way of saying things 

That made one think of courts and kings. 

And lords and ladies of high degree ; 

So that not having been at court 

Seemed something very little short 

Of treason or lese-majesty, 

Such an accomplished knight was he. 

His dwelling was just beyond the town, 
At what he called his country-seat ; 
For, careless of Fortune's smile or frown, 
And weary grown of the world and it| 

ways, 
He wished to pass the rest of his days 
In a private life and a calm retreat. 

But a double life was the life he led, 
And, while professing to be in search 
Of a godly course, and willing, he said, 
Nay, anxious to join the Puritan church, 
He made of all this but small account, 
And passed his idle hours instead 
With roystering Morton of Merry Mount, 
That pettifogger from Furnival's Inn, 
Lord of misrule and riot and sin, 
Who looked on the wine when it was red. 

This country-seat was little more 

Than a cabin of logs ; but in front of the 

door 
A modest flower-bed thickly sown 
With sweet alyssum and columbine 
Made those who saw it at once divine 
The touch of some other hand than his 

own. 
And first it was whispered, and then it was 

known, 
That he in secret was harboring there 
A little lady with golden hair, 
Whom he called his cousin, but whom fos 

had wed 
In the Italian manner, as men said, 
And great was the scandal everywhere- 






THE LANDLORD'S TALE 



28 S 



But worse than this was the vague sur- 
mise, 
Though none could vouch for it or aver, 
That the Knight of the Holy Sepulchre 
Was only a Papist in disguise ; 
And the more to imbitter their bitter lives, 
And the more to trouble the public mind, 
Came letters from England, from two ether 

wives, 
Whom he had carelessly left behind ; 
Both of them letters of such a kind 
As made the governor hold his breath ; 
The one imploring him straight to send 
The husband home, that he might amend ; 
The other asking his instant death, 
As the only way to make an end. 

The wary governor deemed it right, 
When all this wickedness was revealed, 
To send his warrant signed and sealed, 
And take the body of the knight. 
Armed with this mighty instrument, 
The marshal, mounting his gallant steed, 
Rode forth from town at the top of his 

speed, 
And followed by all his bailiffs bold, 
As if on high achievement bent, 
To storm some castle or stronghold, 
Challenge the warders on the wall, 
Aud seize in his ancestral hall 
A robber-baron grim and old. 

But when through all the dust and heat 
He came to Sir Christopher's country-seat, 
No knight he found, nor warder there, 
But the little lady with golden hair, 
Who was gathering in the bright sunshine 
The sweet alyssum and columbine ; 
While gallant Sir Christopher, all so gay, 
Being forewarned, through the postern gate 
Of his castle wall had tripped away, 
And was keeping a little holiday 
In the forests, that bounded his estate. 

Then as a trusty squire and true 
The marshal searched the castle through, 
Not crediting what the lady said ; 
Searched from cellar to garret in vain, 
And, finding no knight, came out again 
And arrested the golden damsel instead, 
And bore her in triumph into the town, 
While from her eyes the tears rolled down 
On the sweet alyssum and columbine, 
That she held in her fingers white and 
fine. 



The governor's heart was moved to see 

So fair a creature caught within 

The snares of Satan and of sin, 

And he read her a little homily 

On the folly and wickedness of the lives 

Of women half cousins and half wives ; 

But, seeing that naught his words availed, 

He sent her away in a ship that sailed 

For Merry England over the sea, 

To the other two wives in the old countree. 

To search her further, since he had failed 

To come at the heart of the mystery. 

Meanwhile Sir Christopher wandered away 
Through pathless woods for a month and a 

day, 
Shooting pigeons, and sleeping at night 
With the noble savage, who took delight 
In his feathered hat and his velvet vest, 
His gun and his rapier and the rest. 
But as soon as the noble savage heard 
That a bounty was offered for this gay bird, 
He wanted to slay him out of hand, 
And bring in his beautiful scalp for a show, 
Like the glossy head of a kite or crow, 
Until he was made to understand 
They wanted the bird alive, not dead ; 
Then he followed him whithersoever he fled, 
Through forest and field, and hunted him 

down, 
And brought him prisoner into the town. 

Alas ! it was a rueful sight, 

To see this melancholy knight 

In such a dismal and hapless case ; 

His hat deformed by stain and dent, 

His plumage broken, his doublet rent, 

His beard and flowing locks forlorn, 

Matted, dishevelled, and unshorn, 

His boots with dust and mire besprent 5 

But dignified in his disgrace, 

And wearing an unblushing face. 

And thus before the magistrate 

He stood to hear the doom of fate. 

In vain he strove with wonted ease 

To modify and extenuate 

His evil deeds in church and state, 

For gone was now his power to please ; 

And his pompous words had no more weight 

Than feathers flying in the breeze. 

With suavity equal to his own 

The governor lent a patient ear 

To the speech evasive and high-flown. 

In which he endeavored to make clear 



286 



TALES OF A WAYSIDE INN 



That colonial laws were too severe 
When applied to a gallant cavalier, 
A gentleman born, and so well known, 
And accustomed to move in a higher sphere. 

All this the Puritan governor heard, 
And deigned in answer never a word ; 
But in summary manner shipped away, 
In a vessel that sailed from Salem Bay, 
This splendid and famous cavalier, 
With his Rupert hat and his popery, 
To Merry England over the sea, 
As being unmeet to inhabit here. 

Thus endeth the Rhyme of Sir Christo- 
pher, 
Knight of the Holy Sepulchre, 
The first who furnished this barren land 
With apples of Sodom and ropes of sand. 



FINALE 

These are the tales those merry guests 
Told to each other, well or ill ; 
Like summer birds that lift their crests 
Above the borders of their nests 
And twitter, and again are still. 

These are the tales, or new or old, 
In idle moments idly told ; 
Flowers of the field with petals thin, 
Lilies that neither toil nor spin, 
And tufts of wayside weeds and gorse 
Hung in the parlor of the inn 
Beneath the sign of the Red Horse. 

And still, reluctant to retire, 

The friends sat talking by the fire 

And watched the smouldering embers 

burn 
To ashes, and flash up again 
Into a momentary glow, 
Lingering like them when forced to go, 
And going when they would remain ; 
For on the morrow they must turn 
Xheir faces homeward, and the pain 



Of parting touched with its unrest 
A tender nerve in every breast. 

But sleep at last the victory won ; 
They must be stirring with the sun, 
And drowsily good night they said, 
And went still gossiping to bed, 
And left the parlor wrapped in gloom. 
The only live thing in the room 
Was the old clock, that in its pace 
Kept time with the revolving spheres 
And constellations in their flight, 
And struck with its uplifted mace 
The dark, unconscious hours of night, 
To senseless and unlistening ears. 

Uprose the sun ; and every guest, 
Uprisen, was soon equipped and dressed 
For journeying home and city-ward ; 
The old stage-coach was at the door, 
With horses harnessed, long before 
The sunshine reached the withered sward 
Beneath the oaks, whose branches hoar 
Murmured : " Farewell f orevermore." 

" Farewell ! " the portly Landlord cried j 
" Farewell ! " the parting guests replied, 
But little thought that nevermore 
Their feet would pass that threshold o'er j 
That nevermore together there 
Would they assemble, free from care, 
To hear the oaks' mysterious roar, 
And breathe the wholesome country air. 

Where are they now ? What lands and skies 
Paint pictures in their friendly eyes ? 
What hope deludes, what promise cheers, 
What pleasant voices fill their ears ? 
Two are beyond the salt sea waves, 
And three already in their graves. 
Perchance the living still may look 
Into the pages of this book, 
And see the days of long ago 
Floating and fleeting to and fro, 
As in the well-remembered brook 
They saw the inverted landscape gleam, 
And their own faces like a dream 
Look up upon them from below. 



FLOWER-DE-LUCE 



FLOWER-DE-LUCE 

Beautiful lily, dwelling by still rivers, 

Or solitary mere, 
Or where the sluggish meadow-brook de- 
livers 

Its waters to the weir ! 

Thou laughest at the mill, the whir and 
worry 
Of spindle and of loom, 
And the great wheel that toils amid the 
hurry 
And rushing of the flume. 

Born in the purple, born to joy and pleas- 
ance, 
Thou dost not toil nor spin, 
But makest glad and radiant with thy pres- 
ence 
The meadow and the lin. 

The wind blows, and uplifts thy drooping 
banner, 
And round thee throng and run 
The rushes, the green yeomen of thy 
manor, 
The outlaws of the sun. 

The burnished dragon-fly is thy attendant, 

And tilts against the field, 
And down the listed sunbeam rides re- 
splendent 

With steel-blue mail and shield. 

Thou art the Iris, fair among the fairest, 
Who, armed with golden rod 

And winged with the celestial azure, 
bearest 
The message of some God. 

Thou art the Muse, who far from crowded 
cities 

Hauntest the sylvan streams, 
Playing on pipes of reed the artless ditties 

That come to us as dreams. 

flower-de-luce, bloom on, and let the river 
Linger to kiss thy feet ! 



O flower of song, bloom on, and make for 
ever 
The world more fair and sweet. 



PALINGENESIS 

I LAY upon the headland-height, and lis- 
tened 
To the incessant sobbing of the sea 

In caverns under me, 
And watched the waves, that tossed and 

fled and glistened, 
Until the rolling meadows of amethyst 
Melted away in mist. 

Then suddenly, as one from sleep, I 

started; 
For round about me all the sunny capes 

Seemed peopled with the shapes 
Of those whom I had known in days 

departed, 
Apparelled in the loveliness which gleams 
On faces seen in dreams. 

A moment only, and the light and glory 
Faded away, and the disconsolate shore 

Stood lonely as before; 
And the wild-roses of the promontory 
Around me shuddered in the wind, and 
shed 

Their petals of pale red. 

There was an old belief that in the em- 
bers 
Of all things their primordial form exists, 

And cunning alchemists 
Could re-create the rose with all its mem- 
bers 
From its own ashes, but without the bloom. 
Without the lost perfume. 

Ah me ! what wonder-working, occult sci- 
ence 
Can from the ashes in our hearts once 
more 
The rose of youth restore ? 
What craft of alchemy can bid defiance 
To time and change, and for a single hour 
Renew this phantom-flower ? 



288 



FLOWER-DE-LUCE 



" Oh, give me back," I cried, " the van- 
ished splendors, 
The breath of morn, and the exultant strife, 

When the swift stream of life 
Bounds o'er its rocky channel, and sur- 
renders 
The pond, with all its lilies, for the leap 
Into the unknown deep ! " 

And the sea answered, with a lamenta- 
tion, 
Like some old prophet wailing, and it said, 

" Alas ! thy youth is dead ! 
It breathes no more, its heart has no pulsa- 
tion ; 
In the dark places with the dead of old 
It lies forever cold ! " 

Then said I, "From its consecrated cere- 
ments 
I will not drag this sacred dust again, 

Only to give me pain; 
But, still remembering all the lost endear- 
ments, 
Go on my way, like one who looks be- 
fore, 
And turns to weep no more." 

Into what land of harvests, what planta- 
tions 
Bright with autumnal foliage and the glow 

Of sunsets burning low; 
Beneath what midnight skies, whose con- 
stellations 
Light up the spacious avenues between 
This world and the unseen ! 

Amid what friendly greetings and caresses, 
What households, though not alien, yet not 
mine, 
What bowers of rest divine; 
To what temptations in lone wildernesses, 
What famine of the heart, what pain and 
loss, 
The bearing of what cross ! 

I do not know; nor will I vainly question 
Those pages of the mystic book which hold 

The story still untold, 
But without rash conjecture or sugges- 
tion 
Turn its last leaves in reverence and good 
heed, 
Until " The End " I read. 



THE BRIDGE OF CLOUD 

Burn, O evening hearth, and waken 

Pleasant visions, as of old ! 
Though the house by winds be shaken, 

Safe I keep this room of gold ! 

Ah, no longer wizard Fancy 

Builds her castles in the air, 
Luring me by necromancy 

Up the never-ending stair ! 

But, instead, she builds me bridges 

Over many a dark ravine, 
Where beneath the gusty ridges 

Cataracts dash and roar unseen. 

And I cross them, little heeding 
Blast of wind or torrent's roar, 

As I follow the receding 

Footsteps that have gone before. 

Naught avails the imploring gesture, 
Naught avails the cry of pain ! 

When I touch the flying vesture, 
'T is the gray robe of the rain. 

Baffled I return, and, leaning 

O'er the parapets of cloud, 
Watch the mist that intervening 

Wraps the valley in its shroud. 

And the sounds of life ascending 
Faintly, vaguely, meet the ear, 

Murmur of bells and voices blending 
With the rush of waters near. 

Well I know what there lies hidden, 
Every tower and town and farm, 

And again the land forbidden 
Reassumes its vanished charm. 

Well I know the secret places, 
And the nests in hedge and tree; 

At what doors are friendly faces, 
In what hearts are thoughts of me. 

Through the mist and darkness sink- 
ing, 
Blown by wind and beaten by shower, 
Down I fling the thought I 'm think- 
ing* 
Down I toss this Alpine flower. 



THE WIND OVER THE CHIMNEY 



289 



HAWTHORNE 

May 23. 1864 

How beautiful it was, that one bright day 

In the long week of rain ! 
Though all its splendor could not chase 
away 

The omnipresent pain. 

The lovely town was white with apple- 
blooins, 

And the great elms o'erhead 
Dark shadows wove on their aerial looms 

Shot through with golden thread. 

Across the meadows, by the gray old manse, 

The historic river flowed: 
I was as one who wanders in a trance, 

Unconscious of his road. 

The faces of familiar friends seemed 
strange; 
Their voices I could hear, 
And yet the words they uttered seemed to 
change 
Their meaning to my ear. 

For the one face I looked for was not there, 

The one low voice was mute; 
Only an unseen presence filled the air, 

And baffled my pursuit. 

Now I look back, and meadow, manse, and 
stream 

Dimly my thought defines; 
I only see — a dream within a dream — 

The hill-top hearsed with pines. 

I only hear above his place of rest 

Their tender undertone, 
The infinite longings of a troubled breast, 

The voice so like his own. 

There in seclusion and remote from men 

The wizard hand lies cold, 
Which at its topmost speed let fall the pen, 

And left the tale half told. 

Ah ! who shall lift that wand of magic 
power, 

And the lost clew regain? 
The unfinished window in Aladdin's tower 

Unfinished must remain ! 



CHRISTMAS BELLS 

I heard the bells on Christmas Day 
Their old, familiar carols play, 

And wild and sweet 

The words repeat 
Of peace on earth, good-will to men ! 

And thought how, as the day had come, 
The belfries of all Christendom 

Had rolled along 

The unbroken song 
Of peace on earth, good-will to men ! 

Till, ringing, singing on its way, 

The world revolved from night to day, 

A voice, a chime, 

A chant sublime 
Of peace on earth, good-will to men ! 

Then from each black, accursed mouth 
The cannon thundered in the South, 

And with the sound 

The carols drowned 
Of peace on earth, good-will to men ! 

It was as if an earthquake rent 
The hearth-stones of a continent, 

And made forlorn 

The households born 
Of peace on earth, good-will to men ! 

And in despair I bowed my head; 
"There is no peace on earth," I said; 

" For hate is strong, 

And mocks the song 
Of peace on earth, good will to men! " 

Then pealed the bells more loud and 

deep: 
" God is not dead; nor doth he sl«ep ! 

The Wrong shall fail, 

The Right prevail, 
With peace on earth, good-will to men ! " 



THE WIND OVER THE CHIMNEV 

See, the fire is sinking low, 
Dusky red the embers glow, 

While above them still I cower, 
While a moment more I linger, 
Though the clock, with lifted finger, 

Points beyond the midnight hour. 



290 



FLOWER-DE-LUCE 



Sings the blackened log a tune 
Learned in some forgotten June 

From a school-boy at his play, 
When they both were young together, 
Heart of youth and summer weather 

Making all their holiday. 

And the night-wind rising, hark ! 
How above there in the dark, 

In the midnight and the snow, 
Ever wilder, fiercer, grander, 
Like the trumpets of Iskander, 

All the noisy chimneys blow ! 

Every quivering tongue of flame 
Seems to murmur some great name, 

Seems to say to me, " Aspire ! " 
But the night-wind answers, " Hollow 
Are the visions that you follow, 

Into darkness sinks your fire ! " 

Then the flicker of the blaze 
Gleams on volumes of old days, 

Written by masters of the art, 
Loud through whose majestic pages 
Rolls the melody of ages, 

Throb the harp-strings of the heart. 

And again the tongues of flame 
Start exulting and exclaim: 

"These are prophets, bards, and seers ; 
In the horoscope of nations, 
Like ascendant constellations, 

They control the coming years." 

But the night-wind cries: " Despair ! 
Those who walk with feet of air 

Leave no long-enduring marks; 
At God's forges incandescent 
Mighty hammers beat incessant, 

These are but the flying sparks. 

" Dust are all the hands that wrought; 
Books are sepulchres of thought; 

The dead laurels of the dead 
Rustle for a moment only, 
Like the withered leaves in lonely 

Churchyards at some passing tread." 

Suddenly the flame sinks down; 
Sink the rumors of renown; 

And alone the night-wind drear 
Clamors louder, wilder, vaguer, — 
" 'T is the brand of Meleager 

Dying on the hearth-stone here J " 



And I answer, — " Though it be, 
Why should that discomfort me ? 

No endeavor is in vain ; 
Its reward is in the doing, 
And the rapture of pursuing 

Is the prize the vanquished gain." 

THE BELLS OF LYNN 

HEARD AT NAHANT 

O curfew of the setting sun ! O Bells of 

Lynn ! 
O requiem of the dying day ! O Bells of 

Lynn ! 

From the dark belfries of yon cloud-cathe- 
dral wafted, 

Your sounds aerial seem to float, O Bells of 
Lynn ! 

Borne on the evening wind across the crim. 

son twiligbt, 
O'er land and sea they rise and fall, O Bells 

of Lynn ! 

The fisherman in his boat, far out beyond 

the headland, 
Listens, and leisurely rows ashore, O Bell3 

of Lynn ! 

Over the shining sands the wandering 

cattle homeward 
Follow each other at your call, O Bells of 

Lynn ! 

The distant lighthouse hears, and with his 

flaming signal 
Answers you, passing the watchword on, O 

Bells of Lynn ! 

And down the darkening coast run the tu- 
multuous surges, 

And clap their hands, and shout to you, O 
Bells of Lynn ! 

Till from the shuddering sea, with your 

wild incantations, 
Ye summon up the spectral moon, O Bell rk 

of Lynn ! 

And startled at the sight, like the weir I 

woman of Endor, 
Ye cry aloud, and then are still, O Bells of 

Lynn ! 



TO-MORROW 



> 9 i 



KILLED AT THE FORD 

\ BE is dead, the beautiful youth, 
The heart of honor, the tongue of truth, 
He, the life and light of us all, 
Whose voice was blithe as a bugle-call, 
Whom all eyes followed with one consent, 
The cheer of whose laugh, and whose plea- 
sant word, 
Hushed all murmurs of discontent. 

Only last night, as we rode along, 
Down the dark of the mountain gap, 
To visit the picket-guard at the ford, 
Little dreaming of any mishap, 
He was humming the words of some old 

song : 
" Two red roses he had on his cap 
And another he bore at the point of his 

sword." 

Sudden and swift a whistling ball 

Came out of a wood, and the voice was 

still; 
Something I heard in the darkness fall, 
And for a moment my blood grew chill; 
I spake in a whisper, as he who speaks 
In a room where some one is lying dead; 
But he made no answer to what I said. 

We lifted him up to his saddle again, 
And through the mire and the mist and 

the rain 
Carried him back to the silent camp, 
And laid him as if asleep on his bed; 
And I saw by the light of the surgeon's 

lamp 
Two white roses upon his cheeks, 
And one, just over his heart, blood-red ! 

And 1 saw in a vision how far and fleet 
That fatal bullet went speeding forth, 
Till it reached a town in the distant North, 
Till it reached a house in a sunny street, 
Till it reached a heart that ceased to beat 
Without a murmur, without a cry; 
And a bell was tolled, in that far-off town, 
For one who had passed from cross to 

crown, 
And the neighbors wondered that she 

should die. 



GIOTTO'S TOWER 

How many lives, made beautiful and sweet 

By self-devotion and by self-restraint, 

Whose pleasure is to run without com- 
plaint 

On unknown errands of the Paraclete, 
Wanting the reverence of uushodden feet, 

Fail of the nimbus which the artists 
paint 

Around the shining forehead of the saint, 

And are in their completeness incom- 
plete ! 
In the old Tuscan town stands Giotto's 
tower, 

The lily of Florence blossoming in 
stone, — 

A vision, a delight, and a desire, — 
The builder's perfect and centennial flower, 

That in the night of ages bloomed 
alone, 

But wanting still the glory of the spire. 



TO-MORROW 

'T is late at night, and in the realm oi 

sleep 
My little lambs are folded like the 

flocks; 
From room to room I hear the wakeful 

clocks 
Challenge the passing hour, like guards 

that keep 
Their solitary watch on tower and steep; 
Far off I hear the crowing of the cocks, 
And through the opening door that time 

unlocks 
Feel the fresh breathing of To-morrow 

creep. 
To-morrow ! the mysterious, unknown 

guest, 
Who cries to me: " Remember Barmei 

cide, 
And tremble to be happy with the rest.' v 
And I make answer: " I am satisfied; 
I dare not ask; I know not what is 

best; 
God hath already said what shall be< 

tide." 



292 



FLOWER-DE-LUCE 





And strive to make my steps keep pace 


DIVINA COMMEDIA 


with thine. 




The air is filled with some unknown per- 


1 


fume; 




The congregation of the dead make room 


Oft have I seen at some cathedral door 


For thee to pass; the votive tapers 


A laborer, pausing in the dust and heat, 


shine; 


Lay down his burden, and with reverent 


Like rooks that haunt Ravenna's groves 


feet 


of pine 


Enter, and cross himself, and on the floor 


The hovering echoes fly from tomb to 


Kneel to repeat his paternoster o'er; 


tomb. 


Far off the noises of the world retreat; 


From the confessionals I hear arise 


The loud vociferations of the street 


Rehearsals of forgotten tragedies, 


Become an undistinguishable roar. 


And lamentations from the crypts bt 


So, as I enter here from day to day, 


low; 


And leave my burden at this minster 


And then a voice celestial that begins 


gate, _ 


With the pathetic words, "Although 


Kneeling in prayer, and not ashamed to 


your sins 


pray, 


As scarlet be," and ends with " as the 


The tumult of the time disconsolate 


snow." 


To inarticulate murmurs dies away, 




While the eternal ages watch and wait. 


IV 


II 


With snow-white veil and garments as of 




flame, 


How strange the sculptures that adorn these 


She stands before thee, who so long ago 


towers ! 


Filled thy young heart with passion and 


This crowd of statues, in whose folded 


the woe 


sleeves 


From which thy song and all its splen- 


Birds build their nests; while canopied 


dors came; 


with leaves 


And while with stern rebuke she speaks thy 


Parvis and portal bloom like trellised 


name, 


bowers, 


The ice about thy heart melts as the 


And the vast minster seems a cross of 


snow 


flowers ! 


On mountain heights, and in swift over- 


But fiends and dragons on the gar- 


flow 


goyled eaves 


Comes gushing from thy lips in sobs of 


Watch the dead Christ between the liv- 


shame. 


ing thieves, 


Thou makest full confession ; and a gleam, 


And, underneath, the traitor Judas low- 


As of the dawn on some dark forest cast, 


ers ! 


Seems on thy lifted forehead to in- 


Ah ! from what agonies of heart and brain, 


crease ; 


What exultations trampling on despair, 


Lethe and Eunoe — the remembered 


What tenderness, what tears, what hate 


dream 


of wrong, 


And the forgotten sorrow — bring at last 


What passionate outcry of a soul in pain, 


That perfect pardon which is perfect 


Uprose this poem of the earth and air, 


peace. 


This mediaeval miracle of song ! 




Ill 


V 
I lift mine eyes, and all the windows blaze 


I enter, and I see thee in the gloom 


With forms of Saints and holy men who 


Of the long aisles, poet saturnine ! 


died, 



NOEL 



2 93 



Here martyred and hereafter glorified; 

And the great Rose upon its leaves dis- 
plays 
Ohrist's Triumph, and the angelic rounde- 
lays, 

With splendor upon splendor multi- 
plied; 

And Beatrice again at Dante's side 

No more rebukes, but smiles her words 
of praise. 
And then the organ sounds, and unseen 
choirs 

Sing the old Latin hymns of peace and 
love 

And benedictions of the Holy Ghost; 
And the melodious bells among the spires 

O'er all the house-tops and through 
heaven above 

Proclaim the elevation of the Host ! 



VI 



O star of morning and of liberty ! 

O bringer of the light, whose splendor 

shines 
Above the darkness of the Apennines, 
Forerunner of the day that is to be ! 
The voices of the city and the sea, 

The voices of the mountains and the 

pines, 
Repeat thy song, till the familiar lines 
Are footpaths for the thought of Italy ! 
Thy flame is blown abroad from all the 
heights, 
Through all the nations, and a sound is 

heard, 
As of a mighty wind, and men devout, 
Strangers of Rome, and the new proselytes, 
In their own language hear thy won- 
drous word, 
And many are amazed and many doubt. 



NOEL 

ENVOYE A M. AGASSIZ, LA VEILLE DE 
NOEL 1864, AVEC UN PANIER DE VINS 
DIVERS 

L'Acactemie en respect, 
Nonobetant l'incorrection 
A la faveur du sujet, 

Ture-lure, 
N"y f era point de rature; 
NobI ! ture-lure-lure. 

Gui Barozai. 



Quand les astres de Noel 
Brillaieut, palpitaient au ciel, 
Six gaillards, et chacun ivre, 
Chautaient gaiment dans le givre, 

" Bons amis, 
Allons done chez Agassiz ! " 

Ces illustres Pelerins 
D'Outre-Mer adroits et fins, 
Se donnaiit des airs de pretre, 
A l'envi se vantaient d'etre 

" Bono amis 
De Jean Rudolphe Agassiz ! " 

(Eil-de-Perdrix, grand farceur, 
Sans reproche et sans pudeur, 
Dans son patois de Bourgogne, 
Bredouillait comme un ivrogne, 

" Bons amis, 
J'ai dansd chez Agassiz ! " 

Verzenay le Champenois, 
Bon Francais, point New-Yorquois s 
Mais des environs d'Avize, 
Fredonne a mainte reprise, 

" Bons amis, 
J'ai chante' chez Agassiz ! " 

A cote' marchait un vieux 
Hidalgo, mais non moussenx; 
Dans le temps de Charlemagne 
Fut son pere Grand d'Espagne ! 

" Bons amis, 
J'ai dine' chez Agassiz ! " 

Derriere eux un Bordelais, 
Gascon, s'il en fut jamais, 
Parfnme de podsie 
Riait, chantait, plein de vie, 

" Bons amis, 
J'ai soupe* chez Agassiz ! " 

Avec ce beau cadet roux, 
Bras dessus et bras dessous, 
Mine altiere et couleur terne, 
Vint le Sire de Sauterne; 

" Bons amis, 
J'ai couche* chez Agassiz ! " 

Mais le dernier de ces preux, 
Ktait un pan v re Chartreux, 
Qui disait, d'un ton robuste, 
; Be'ne'dietions sur le Juste ! 

Bons amis, 
Bduissons Pere Agassiz 1" 



294 



BIRDS OF PASSAGE 



lis arrivent trois a trois, 
Montent l'escalier de bois 
Clopin-clopant ! quel gendarme 
Peut permettre ce vacarme, 

Bons amis, 
A la porte d'Agassiz ! 

"Ouvrez done, mon bon Seigneur, 
Ouvrez vite et n'ayez peur; 
Ouvrez, ouvrez, car nous sommes 



Gens de bien et gentilshommes, 

Bons amis 
De la famille Agassiz ! " 

Chut, ganaches ! taisez-vous ! 
C'en est trop de vos glouglous; 
Epargnez aux Philosophes 
Vos abominables strophes ! 

Bons amis, 
Respectez mon Agassiz ! 



BIRDS OF PASSAGE 



FLIGHT THE THIRD 



FATA MORGANA 

sweet illusions of Song, 
That tempt me everywhere, 

In the lonely fields, and the throng 
Of the crowded thoroughfare ! 

1 approach, and ye vanish away, 
I grasp you, and ye are gone; 

But ever by night and by day, 
The melody soundeth on. 

As the weary traveller sees 
In desert or prairie vast, 

Blue lakes, overhung with trees, 
That a pleasant shadow cast; 

Fair towns with turrets high, 
And shining roofs of gold, 

That vanish as he draws nigh, 
Like mists together rolled, — 

So I wander and wander along, 
And forever before me gleams 

The shining city of song, 

In the beautiful land of dreams. 

But when I would enter the gate 
Of that golden atmosphere, 

It is gone, and I wonder and wait 
For the vision to reappear. 



THE HAUNTED CHAMBER 

Each heart has its haunted chamber, 
Where the silent moonlight falls ! 



On the floor are mysterious footsteps, 
There are whispers along the walls ! 

And mine at times is haunted 

By phantoms of the Past, 
As motionless as shadows 

By the silent moonlight cast. 

A form sits by the window, 

That is not seen by day, 
For as soon as the dawn approaches 

It vanishes away. 

It sits there in the moonlight, 

Itself as pale and still, 
And points with its airy finger 

Across the window-sill. 

Without, before the window, 

There stands a gloomy pine, 
Whose boughs wave upward and down* 
ward 

As wave these thoughts of mine. 

And underneath its branches 
Is the grave of a little child, 

Who died upon life's threshold, 
And never wept nor smiled. 

What are ye, O pallid phantoms ! 

That haunt my troubled brain? 
That vanish when day approaches, 

And at night return again ? 

What are ye, O pallid phantoms ! 

But the statues without breath, 
That stand on the bridge overarching 

The silent river of death ? 



THE CHALLENGE 



295 



THE MEETING 

After so long an absence 

At last we meet again : 
Does the meeting give ns pleasure, 

Or does it give us pain? 

The tree of life has been shaken, 
And but few of us linger now, 

Like the Prophet's two or three berries 
In the top of the uppermost bough. 

We cordially greet each other 

In the old, familiar tone; 
And we think, though we do not say it, 

How old and gray he is grown 1 

We speak of a Merry Christmas 
And many a Happy New Year; 

But each in his heart is thinking 
Of those that are not here. 

We speak of friends and their fortunes, 
And of what they did and said, 

Till the dead alone seem living, 
And the living alone seem dead. 

And at last we hardly distinguish 
Between the ghosts and the guests; 

And a mist and shadow of sadness 
Steals over our merriest jests. 



VOX POPULI 

When Maza>van the Magician 

Journeyed westward through Cathay, 

Nothing heard he but the praises 
Of Badoura on his way. 

But the lessening rumor ended 
When he came to Khaledan, 

There the folk were talking only 
Of Prince Camaralzaman. 

So it happens with the poets: 
Every province hath its own; 

Camaralzaman is famous 

Where Badoura is unknown. 



THE CASTLE-BUILDER 

gentle boy, with soft and silken locks, 
A dreamy boy, with brown and tender eyes, 



A castle-builder, with his wooden blocks, 
And towers that touch imaginary skies. 

A fearless rider on his father's knee, 
An eager listener unto stories told 

At the Round Table of the nursery, 
Of heroes and adventures manifold. 

There will be other towers for thee to build; 

There will be other steeds for thee to 
ride; 
There will be other legends, and all filled 

With greater marvels aud more glorified. 

Build on, and make thy castles high and fair, 
Rising and reaching upward to the skiesj 

Listen to voices in the upper air, 

Nor lose thy simple faith in mysteries. 



CHANGED 

From the outskirts of the town, 

Where of old the mile-stone stood, 
Now a stranger, looking down, 
I behold the shadowy crown 
Of the dark and haunted wood. 

Is it changed, or am I changed ? 

Ah ! the oaks are fresh and green, 
But the friends with whom I ranged 
Through their thickets are estranged 

By the years that intervene. 

Bright as ever flows the sea, 

Bright as ever shines the sun, 
But alas ! they seem to me 
Not the sun that used to be, 
Not the tides that used to run. 



THE CHALLENGE 

I have a vague remembrance 
Of a story, that is told 

In some ancient Spanish legend 
Or chronicle of old. 

It was when brave King Sanchez 
Was before Zamora slain, 

And his great besieging army 
Lay encamped upon the plain. 

Don Diego de Ordonez 

Sallied forth in front of all, 



29 6 



BIRDS OF PASSAGE 



And shouted loud his challenge 
To the warders on the wall. 

All the people of Zamora, 

Both the born and the unborn, 

As traitors did he challenge 
With taunting words of scorn. 

The living, in their houses, 
And in their graves, the dead ! 

And the waters of their rivers, 

And their wine, and oil, and bread ! 

There is a greater army, 

That besets us round with strife, 
A starving, numberless army, 

At all the gates of life. 

The poverty-stricken millions 

Who challenge our wine and bread, 

And impeach us all as traitors, 
Both the living and the dead. 

And whenever I sit at the banquet, 
Where the feast and song are high, 

Amid the mirth and the music 
I can hear that fearful cry. 

And hollow and haggard faces 

Look into the lighted hall, 
And wasted hands are extended 

To catch the crumbs that fall. 

For within there is light and plenty, 

And odors fill the air; 
But without there is cold and darkness, 

And hunger and despair. 

And there in the camp of famine 
In wind and cold and rain 9 



Christ, the great Lord of the army, 
Lies dead upon the plain ! 



THE BROOK AND THE WAVE 

The brooklet came from the mountain, 

As sang the bard of old, 
Running with feet of silver 

Over the sands of gold I 

Far away in the briny ocean 
There rolled a turbulent wave, 

Now singing along the sea-beach, 
Now howling along the cave. 

And the brooklet has found the billow, 
Though they flowed so far apart, 

And has filled with its freshness and sweet 
ness 
That turbulent, bitter heart ! 



AFTERMATH 

When the summer fields are mown, 
When the birds are fledged and flown, 

And the dry leaves strew the path; 
W r ith the falling of the snow, 
W T ith the cawing of the crow, 
Once again the fields we mow 

And gather in the aftermath. 

Not the sweet, new grass with flowers 
Is this harvesting of ours; 

Not the upland clover bloom; 
But the rowen mixed with weeds, 
Tangled tufts from marsh and meads, 
Where the poppy drops its seeds 

In the silence and the gloom. 






THE MASQUE OF PANDORA 



THE MASQUE OF PANDORA 

The title poem in the volume, The Masque of Pan- 
lora and other Poems, published in 1875. It was adapt- 
ed for the stage, and set to music by Alfred Cellier, 
and was brought out in an adaptation by Bolton Rovve 
at the Boston Theatre in 1881. Mr. Longfellow wrote 
for Miss Blanche Roosevelt, who was principally con- 
cerned in putting it on the stage, and who took the part 
of Pandora, the following song and chorus : — 

What place is this ? Oh tell me, I implore ! 

Tell me what I am feeling, hearing, seeing ; 
If this be life, oh give me more and more, 

Till I am filled with the delight of being. 

What forms mysterious people this dark space? 

What voices and what sounds of music greet me ? 
And who are these, so fair in form and face, 

That with such gracious welcome come to meet me? 



CHORUS 

Blow, bellows, blow ! and keep the flame from dying, 
Till from the iron on our anvils lying 
We forge the thunderbolts of Zeus supreme. 
Whose smothered lightnings in the ashes gleam. 



THE WORKSHOP OF HEPHAESTUS 

hephjestus (standing before the statue of 
Pandora). 

Not fashioned out of gold, like Hera's 

throne, 
Nor forged of iron like the thunderbolts 
Of Zeus omnipotent, or other works 
Wrought by my hands at Lemnos or Olym- 
pus, 
But moulded in soft clay, that unresisting 
Yields itself to the touch, this lovely form 
Before me stands, perfect in every part. 
Not Aphrodite's self appeared more fair, 
When first upwafted by caressing winds 
She came to high Olympus, and the gods 
Paid homage to her beauty. Thus her 
hair 



Was cinctured; thus her floating drapery 
Was like a cloud about her, and her face 
Was radiant with the sunshine and the sea, 



THE VOICE OF ZEUS. 

Is thy work done, Hephaestus ? 



HEPH.ESTUS. 



It is finished ! 



THE VOICE. 

Not finished till 1 breathe the breath of 

life 
Into her nostrils, and she moves and speaks. 

HEPHAESTUS. 

Will she become immortal like ourselves? 

THE VOICE. 

The form that thou hast fashioned out of 

clay 
Is of the earth and mortal; but the spirit, 
The life, the exhalation of my breath, 
Is of diviner essence and immortal. 
The gods shall shower on her their benefac- 
tions, 
She shall possess all gifts: the gift of 

song, 
The gift of eloquence, the gift of beauty, 
The fascination and the nameless charm 
That shall lead all men captive. 

HEPHAESTUS. 

Wherefore ? wherefore ? 

A wind shakes the house. 

I hear the rushing of a mighty wind 
Through all the halls and chambers of my 
house ! 



298 



THE MASQUE OF PANDORA 



Her parted lips inhale it, and her bosom 
Heaves with the inspiration. As a reed 
Beside a river in the rippling current 
Bends to and fro, she bows or lifts her head. 
She gazes round about as if amazed ; 
She is alive ; she breathes, but yet she 
speaks not ! 

Pandora descends from the pedestal 

CHORUS OF THE GRACES 

AGLA1A. 

In the workshop of Hephaestus 

What is this I see ? 
Have the Gods to four increased us 

Who were only three ? 
Beautiful in form and feature, 

Lovely as the day, 
Can there be so fair a creature 

Formed of common clay ? 

THALIA. 

sweet, pale face ! O lovely eyes of 
azure, 

Clear as the waters of a brook that run 

Limpid and laughing in the summer sun ! 

O golden hair, that like a miser's trea- 
sure 
In its abundance overflows the measure ! 

O graceful form, that cloudlike floatest 
on 

W r ith the soft, undulating gait of one 

Who moveth as if motion were a plea- 
sure ! 
By what name shall I call thee ? Nymph 
or Muse, 

Callirrhoe' or Urania ? Some sweet name 

W T hose every syllable is a caress 
Would best befit thee ; but I cannot 
choose, 

Nor do I care to choose ; for still the 
same, 

Nameless or named, will be thy love- 
liness. 

EUPHROSYNE. 

Dowered with all celestfal gifts, 

Skilled in every art 
That ennobles and uplifts 

And delights the heart, 
Fair on earth shall be thy fame 

As thy face is fair, 
And Pandora be the name 

Thou henceforth shalt bear. 



II 



OLYMPUS 

hermes (putting on his sandals). 
Much must he toil who serves the Immcfc 

tal Gods, 
And I, who am their herald, most of all. 
No rest have I, nor respite. I no sooner 
Unclasp the winged sandals from my feet, 
Than 1 again must clasp them, and depart 
Upon some foolish errand. But to-day 
The errand is not foolish. Never yet 
With greater joy did I obey the summons 
That sends me earthward. I will fly so 

swiftly 
That my caduceus in the 'whistling air 
Shall make a sound like the Pandsean 

pipes, 
Cheating the shepherds ; for to-day I go, 
Commissioned by high-thundering Zeus, to 

lead 
A maiden to Prometheus, in his tower, 
And by my cunning arguments persuade 

him 
To marry her. What mischief lies con 

cealed 
In this design I know not ; but I know 
Who thinks of marrying hath already 

taken 
One step upon the road to penitence. 
Such embassies delight me. Forth I 

launch 
On the sustaining air, nor fear to fall 
Like Icarus, nor swerve aside like him 
Who drove amiss Hyperion's fiery steeds. 
I sink, I fly ! The yielding element 
Folds itself round about me like an arm, 
And holds me as a mother holds her child. 



Ill 



TOWER OF PROMETHEUS ON MOUN1 
CAUCASUS 

PROMETHEUS. 

I hear the trumpet of Alectryon 
Proclaim the dawn. The stars begin to 

fade, 
And all the heavens are full of prophecies 
And evil auguries. Blood-red last night 
I saw great Kronos rise ; the crescent 

moon 



THE MASQUE OF PANDORA 



299 



Sank through the mist, as if it were the 

scythe 
His parricidal hand had flung far down 
The western steeps. O ye Immortal Gods, 
What evil are ye plotting and contriving ? 

Hermes and Pandoka at the threshold. 

PANDORA. 

t cannot cross the threshold. An unseen 
And icy hand repels me. These blank walls 
Oppress me with their weight ! 

PROMETHEUS. 

Powerful ye are, 
But not omnipotent. Ye cannot fight 
Against Necessity. The Fates control you, 
As they do us, and so far we are equals ! 

PANDORA. 

Motionless, passionless, companionless, 
He sits there muttering in his beard. His 

voice 
Is like a river flowing underground ! 



Prometheus, hail ! 



PROMETHEUS. 

Who calls me ? 



Dost thou not know me ? 



It is I. 



PROMETHEUS. 

By thy winged cap 
And winged heels I know thee. Thou art 

Hermes, 
Captain of thieves ! Hast thou again been 

stealing 
The heifers of Admetus in the sweet 
Meadows of asphodel ? or Hera's girdle ? 
Or the earth-shaking trident of Poseidon ? 

HERMES. 

And thou, Prometheus ; say, hast thou 
again 

Been stealing fire from Helios' chariot- 
wheels 

To light thy furnaces ? 

PROMETHEUS. 

Why comest thou hither 
So early in the dawn ? 



HERMES. 

The Immortal Gods 
Know naught of late or early. Zeus him* 

self, 
The omnipotent hath sent me. 

PROMETHEUS. 

For what purpose ? 

HERMES. 

To bring this maiden to thee. 

PROMETHEUS. 

I mistrust 
The Gods and all their gifts. If they have 

sent her 
It is for no good purpose. 

HERMES. 

What disaster 
Could she bring on thy house, who is p 
woman ? 

PROMETHEUS. 

The Gods are not my friends, nor am I 

theirs. 
Whatever comes from them, though in a 

shape 
As beautiful as this, is evil only. 
Who art thou ? 

PANDORA. 

One who, though to thee unknown, 
Yet knoweth thee. 

PROMETHEUS. 

How shouldst thou know me, woman ? 

PANDORA. 

Who knoweth not Prometheus the humane ? 

PROMETHEUS. 

Prometheus the unfortunate ; to whom 
Both Gods and men have shown themselves 

ungrateful. 
When every spark was quenched on every 

hearth 
Throughout the earth, I brought to mac 

the fire 
And all its ministrations. My reward 
Hath been the rock and vulture. 



But the Gods 



At last relent and pardon. 



JOO 



THE MASQUE OF PANDORA 



PROMETHEUS. 



They relent not ; 
They pardon not ; they are implacable, 
Revengeful, unforgiving ! 



As a pledge 
Of reconciliation they have sent to thee 
This divine being, to be thy companion, 
And bring into thy melancholy house 
The sunshine and the fragrance of her 
youth. 

PROMETHEUS. 

1 need them not. I have within myself 
All that my heart desires ; the ideal beauty 
Which the creative faculty of mind 
Fashions and follows in a thousand shapes 
More lovely than the real. My own 

thoughts 
Are my companions; my designs and labors 
And aspirations are my only friends. 

HERMES. 

Decide not rashly. The decision made 
Can never be recalled. The Gods implore 

not, 
Plead not, solicit not ; they only offer 
Choice and occasion, which once being 

passed 
Return no more. Dost thou accept the 

gift? 

PROMETHEUS. 

No gift of theirs, in whatsoever shape 
It comes to me, with whatsoever charm 
To fascinate my sense, will I receive. 
Leave me. 

PANDORA. 

Let us go hence. I will not stay. 



f^e leave thee to thy vacant dreams, and 

all 
The silence and the solitude of thought, 
The endless bitterness of unbelief, 
The loneliness of existence without love. 

CHORUS OF THE FATES. 
CLOTHO. 

How the Titan, the defiant, 
The self-centred, self-reliant, 
Wrapped in visions and illusions, 



Robs himself of life's best gifts ! 
Till by all the storm-winds shaken, 
By the blast of fate o'ertaken, 
Hopeless, helpless, and forsaken, 
In the mists of his confusions 
To the reefs of doom he drifts ! 

LACHESIS. 

Sorely tried and sorely tempted, 
From no agonies exempted, 
In the penance of his trial, 
And the discipline of pain ; 
Often by illusions cheated, 
Often baffled and defeated 
In the tasks to be completed, 
He, by toil and self-denial, 
To the highest shall attain. 



Tempt no more the noble schemer ; 
Bear unto some idle dreamer 
This new toy and fascination, 
This new dalliance and delight ! 
To the garden where reposes 
Epimetheus crowned with roses, 
To the door that never closes 
Upon pleasure and temptation, 
Bring this vision of the night ! 






IV 



THE AIR 

Hermes (returning to Olympus). 
As lonely as the tower that he inhabits, 
As firm and cold as are the crags about 

him, 
Prometheus stands. The thunderbolts C 5 

Zeus 
Alone can move him ; but the tender heart 
Of Epimetheus, burning at white heat, 
Hammers and flames like all his brother's 

forges ! 
Now as an arrow from Hyperion's bow, 
My errand done, I fly, I float, I soar 
Into the air, returning to Olympus. 
O joy of motion ! O delight to cleave 
The infinite realms of space, the liquid 

ether, 
Through the warm sunshine and the cooling 

cloud, 
Myself as light as sunbeam or as cloud ! 
With one touch of my swift and winged 

feet. 



THE MASQUE OF PANDORA 



331 



I spurn the solid earth, and leave it rock- 
ing 

As rocks the bough from which a bird takes 
wing. 



THE HOUSE OF EPIMETHEUS 

EPIMETHEUS. 

Beautiful apparition ! go not hence ! 
Surely thou art a Goddess, for thy voice 
Is a celestial melody, and thy form 
Self- poised as if it floated on the air ! 

PANDORA. 

No Goddess am I, nor of heavenly birth, 
But a mere woman fashioned out of clay 
And mortal as the rest. 

EPIMETHEUS. 

Thy face is fair ; 
There is a wonder in thine azure eyes 
That fascinates me. Thy whole presence 

seems 
A soft desire, a breathing thought of love. 
Say, would thy star like Merope's grow dim 
If thou shouldst wed beneath thee ? 

PANDORA. 

Ask me not ; 
I cannot answer thee. I only know 
The Gods have sent me hither. 

EPIMETHEUS. 

I believe, 
And thus believing am most fortunate. 
It was not Hermes led thee here, but Eros, 
And swifter than his arrows were thine eyes 
In wounding me. There was no moment's 

space 
Between my seeing thee and loving thee. 
Oh, what a telltale face thou hast ! Again 
( see the wonder in thy tender eyes. 

PANDORA. 

They do but answer to the love in thine, 
Yet secretly I wonder thou shouldst love 

me. 
Thou knowest me not. 

EPIMETHEUS. 

Perhaps 1 know thee better 
Than had I known thee longer. Yet it 



That I have always known thee, and but 

now 
Have found thee. Ah, I have been waiting 

long. 

PANDORA. 

How beautiful is this house ! The atmos- 
phere 

Breathes rest and comfort, and the many 
chambers 

Seem full of welcomes. 

EPIMETHEUS. 

They not only seem. 
But truly are. This dwelling and its mas- 
ter 
Belong to thee. 

PANDORA. 

Here let me stay forever ! 
There is a spell upon me. 

EPIMETHEUS. 

Thou thyself 
Art the enchantress, and I feel thy power 
Envelop me, and wrap my soul and sense 
Iu an Elysian dream. 

PANDORA. 

Oh, let me stay. 
How beautiful are all things round about 

me, 
Multiplied by the mirrors on the wails ! 
What treasures hast thou here ! Yon oaken 

chest, 
Carven with figures and embossed with 

gold, 
Is wonderful to look upon ! What choice 
And precious things dost thou keep 6>«dden 

in it? 

EPIMETHEUS. 

I know not. *T is a mystery. 



PANDORA. 



Lifted the lid ? 



Hast thou nevex 



EPIMETHEUS. 

The oracle forbids. 
Safely concealed there from all mortal eyes 
Forever sleeps the secret of the Gods. 
Seek not to know what they have hiddoc 

from thee, 
Till they themselves reveal it. 



302 



THE MASQUE OF PANDORA 



As thou wilt. 

EPIMETHEUS. 

Let us go forth from this mysterious place. 
The gardeu walks are pleasaut at this 

hour ; 
The nightingales among the sheltering 

boughs 
Of populous and many-nested trees 
Shall teach me how to woo thee, and shall 

tell me 
By what resistless charms or incantations 
They won their mates. 

PANDORA. 

Thou dost not need a teacher. 

They go out. 

CHORUS OF THE EUMENIDES. 

What the Immortals 
Confide to thy keeping, 
Tell unto no man ; 
Waking or sleeping, 
Closed be thy portals 
To friend as to foeman. 

Silence conceals it ; 
The word that is spoken 
Betrays and reveals it ; 
By breath or by token 
The charm may be broken. 

With shafts of their splendors 
The Gods unforgiving 
Pursue the offenders, 
The dead and the living ! 
Fortune forsakes them, 
Nor earth shall abide them, 
Nor Tartarus hide them ; 
Swift wrath overtakes them. 

With useless endeavor, 
Forever, forever, 
Is Sisyphus rolling 
His stone up the mountain ! 
Immersed in the fountain, 
Tantalus tastes not 
The water that wastes not ! 
Through ages increasing 
The pangs that afflict him, 
With motion unceasing 
The wheel of Ixion 
Shall torture its victim 1 



VI 



IN THE GARDEN 

EPIMETHEUS. 

Yon snow-white cloud that sails sublime m 

ether 
Is but the sovereign Zeus, who like a swan 
Flies to fair-ankled Leda ! 

PANDORA. 

Or perchance 
Ixion's cloud, the shadowy shape of Hera, 
That bore the Centaurs. 

EPIMETHEUS. 

The divine and human. 

CHORUS OF BIRDS. 

Gently swaying to and fro, 
Rocked by all the winds that blow, 
Bright with sunshine from above, 
Dark with shadow from below, 
Beak to beak and breast to breast 
In the cradle of their nest, 
Lie the fledglings of our love. 



ECHO. 



Love ! love I 



EPIMETHEUS. 

Hark ! listen ! Hear how sweetly over- 
head 

The feathered flute-players pipe their songs 
of love, 

And Echo answers, love and only love. 

CHORUS OF BIRDS. 

Every flutter of the wing, 
Every note of song we sing, 
Every murmur, every tone, 
Is of love and love alone. 



Love alone J 

EPIMETHEUS. 

Who would not love, if loving she might be 
Changed like Callisto to a star in heaven ? 

PANDORA. 

Ah, who would love, if loving she might be 
Like Semele consumed and burnt to 
ashes? 



THE MASQUE OF PANDORA 



3o3 



EPIMETHEUS. 

Whence knowest thou these stories ? 

PANDORA. 

Hermes taught me j 
fit? 'old me all the history of the Gods. 

CHORUS OF REEDS. 

Evermore a sound shall be 

In the reeds of Arcady, 

Evermore a low lament 

Of unrest and discontent^ 

As the story is retold 

Of the nymph so coy and cold, 

Who with frightened feet outran 

The pursuing steps of Fan. 

EPIMETHEUS. 

The pipe of Pan out of these reeds is 
made, 

And when he plays upon it to the shep- 
herds 

The/ pity him, so mournful is the sound. 

Be { sou not coy and cold as Syrinx was. 

PANDORA. 

Nor thou as Pan be rude and mannerless. 

PROMETHEUS (without). 

Ho I Epimetheus ! 

EPIMETHEUS. 

'T is my brother's voice ; 
A sound unwelcome and inopportune 
As was the braying of Silenus' ass, 
Once heard in Cy Dele's garden. 



PANDORA. 



I would not be found here 
see him. 

She escapes among the trees. 

CHORUS OF DRYADES. 

Haste and hide thee, 

Ere too late, 

In these thickets intricate ^ 

Lest Prometheus 

See and chide thee, 

Lest some hurt 

Or harm betide thee, 

Haste and hide thee I 



Let me go. 
I would not 



prometheus (entering). 

Who was it tied from here ? I saw a 

shape 
Flitting among the trees. 

EPIMETHEUS. 

It was Pandora 

PROMETHEUS. 

Epimetheus ! Is it then in vain 

That I have warned thee ? Let me now 

implore. 
Thou harborest in thy house a dangerous 

guest. 

EPIMETHEUS. 

Whom the Gods love they honor with such 

guests. 

PROMETHEUS. 

Whom the Gods would destroy they first 
make mad. 

EPIMETHEUS. 

Shall I refuse the gifts they send to me ? 

PROMETHEUS. 

Reject all gifts that come from highei 
powers. 

EPIMETHEUS. 

Such gifts as this are not to be rejected. 

PROMETHEUS. 

Make not thyself the slave of any woman. 

EPIMETHEUS. 

Make not thyself the judge of any man. 

PROMETHEUS. 

1 judge thee not ; for thou art more than 

man ; 
Thou art descended from Titanic race, 
And hast a Titan's strength and faculties 
That make thee godlike ; and thou sittest 

here 
Like Heracles spinning Omphale's flax, 
And beaten with her sandals. 

EPIMETHEUS. 

O my brother I 
Thou drivest me to madness with thy taunte 



3°4 



THE MASQUE OF PANDORA 



PROMETHEUS. 

And me thou drivest to madness with thy 

follies. 
Come with me to my tower on Caucasus : 
See there my forges in the roaring caverns, 
Beneficent to man, and taste the joy 
That springs from labor. Read with me 

the stars, 
And learn the virtues that lie hidden in 

plants, 
And all things that are useful. 

EPIMETHEUS. 

O my brother ! 
I am not as thou art. Thou dost inherit 
Our father's strength, and I our mother's 

weakness : 
The softness of the Oceanides, 
The yielding nature that cannot resist. 

PROMETHEUS. 

Because thou wilt not. 

EPIMETHEUS. 

Nay ; because I cannot. 

PROMETHEUS. 

Assert thyself ; rise up to thy full height ; 

ohake from thy soul these dreams effemi- 
nate, 

These passions born of indolence and ease. 

Resolve, and thou art free. But breathe 
the air 

Of mountains, and their unapproachable 
summits 

Will lift thee to the level of themselves. 

EPIMETHEUS. 

The roar of forests and of waterfalls, 
The rushing of a mighty wind, with loud 
And undistinguishable voices calling, 
Are in my ear ! 

PROMETHEUS. 

Oh, listen and obey. 



EPIMETHEUS. 

Thou leadest me as a child. 
They go out. 



I follow thee. 



CHORUS OF OREADES. 

Centuries old are the mountains; 
Their foreheads wrinkled and rifted 



Helios crowns by day, 
Pallid Selene by night ; 
From their bosoms uptossed 
The snows are driven and drifted, 
Like Tithonus' beard 
Streaming dishevelled and white. 

Thunder and tempest of wind 
Their trumpets blow in the vastness » 
Phantoms of mist and rain, 
Cloud and the shadow of cloud, 
Pass and repass by the gates 
Of their inaccessible fastness ; 
Ever unmoved they stand, 
Solemn, eternal, and proud. 

VOICES OF THE WATEB3, 

Flooded by rain and snow 
In their inexhaustible sources, 
Swollen by affluent streams 
Hurrying onward and hurled 
Headlong over the crags, 
The impetuous water-courses 
Rush and roar and plunge 
Down to the nethermost world. 

Say, have the solid rocks 
Into streams of silver been melted, 
Flowing over the plains, 
Spreading to lakes in the fields ? 
Or have the mountains, the giants, 
The ice-helmed, the forest-belted, 
Scattered their arms abroad ; 
Flung in the meadows their shields ? 

VOICES OF THE WINDS. 

High on their turreted cliffs 

That bolts of thunder have shattered 

Storm-winds muster and blow 

Trumpets of terrible breath ; 

Then from the gateways rush, 

And before them routed and scattered 

Sullen the cloud-rack flies, 

Pale with the pallor of death. 

Onward the hurricane rides*, 
And flee for shelter the shepherds ; 
White are the frightened leaves, 
Harvests with terror are white ; 
Panic seizes the herds, 
And even the lions and leopards. 
Prowling no longer for prey, 
Crouch in their caverns with fn'crbts 









THE MASQUE OF PANDORA 



j ->b 



VOICES OF THE FORESTS. 

Guarding the mountains around 
Majestic the forests are standing, 
Bright are their crested helms, 
Dark is their armor of leaves ; 
Filled with the breath of freedom 
Each bosom subsiding, expanding, 
Now like the ocean sinks, 
Now like the ocean upheaves. 

Planted firm on the rock, 
With foreheads stern and defiant, 
Loud they shout to the winds, 
Loud to the tempest they call ; 
.tf aught but Olympian thunders, 
fhat blasted Titan and Giant, 
Them can uproot and o'erthrow, 
. Shaking the earth with their fall. 

CHORUS OF OREADES. 

These are the Voices Three 

Of winds and forests and fountains, 

Voices of earth and of air, 

Murmur and rushing of streams, 

Making together one sound, 

The mysterious voice of the mountains, 

Waking the sluggard that sleeps, 

Waking the dreamer of dreams. 

These are the Voices Three, 
That speak of endless endeavor, 
Speak of endurance and strength, 
Triumph and fulness of fame, 
Sounding about the world, 
An inspiration forever, 
Stirring the hearts of men, 
Shaping their end and their aim. 



VII 
THE HOUSE OF EPIMETHEUS 

PANDORA. 

Left to myself I wander as I will, 

And as my fancy leads me, through this 

house, 
Nor could I ask a dwelling more complete 
Were I indeed the Goddess that he deems 

me. 
No mansion of Olympus, framed to be 
The habitation of the Immortal Gods, 
Can be more beautiful. And this is mine, 
And more than this, the love wherewith he 

crowns me. 



As if impelled by powers invisible 
And irresistible, my steps return 
Unto this spacious hall. All corridors 
And passages lead hither, and all doors 
But open into it. Yon mysterious chest 
Attracts and fascinates me. Would i 

knew 
What there lies hidden ! But the oracle 
Forbids. Ah me 1 The secret then is 

safe. 
So would it be if it were in my keeping. 
A crowd of shadowy faces from the 

mirrors 
That line these walls are watching me. ) 

dare not 
Lift up the lid. A hundred times the act 
Would be repeated, and the secret seen 
By twice a hundred incorporeal eyes. 
She walks to the other side of the hall. 
My feet are weary, wandering to and fro, 
My eyes with seeing and my heart with 

waiting. 
I will lie here and rest till he returns, 
Who is my dawn, my day, my Helios. 
Throws herself upon a couch, and falls asleep, 

ZEPHYRUS. 

Come from thy caverns dark and deep, 
O son of Erebus and Night ; 
Ali sense of hearing and of sight 
Enfold in the serene delight 
And quietude of sleep ! 

Set all thy silent sentinels 
To bar and guard the Ivory Gate, 
And keep the evil dreams of fate 
And falsehood and infernal hate 
Imprisoned in their cells. 

But open wide the Gate of Horn, 
Whence, beautiful as planets, rise » 

The dreams of truth, with starry eyes, 
And all the wondrous prophecies 
And visions of the morn. 

CHORUS OF DREAMS FROM THE IVORY GATR 

Ye sentinels of sleep, 

It is in vain ye keep 
Your drowsv watch before the Ivory Gate \ 

Though closed the portal seems, 

The airy feet of dreams 
Ye cannot thus in walls incarcerate. 

We phantoms are and dreams 
Born by Tartarean streams. 



3o6 



THE MASQUE OF PANDORA 



As ministers of the infernal powers ; 


Shall afflict and vex mankind, 


O son of Erebus 


All into the air have risen 


And Night, behold ! we thus 


From the chambers of their prison J 


Elude your watchful warders on the towers ! 


Only Hope remains behind. 


From gloomy Tartarus 




The Fates have summoned us 


VIII 


To whisper in her ear, who lies asleep, 




A tale to fan the fire 


IN THE GARDEN 


Of her insane desire 




To know a secret that the Gods would 


EPIMETHEUS. 


keep. 


The storm is past, but it hath left behind 

it 
Ruin and desolation. All the walks 


This passion, in their ire, 


The Gods themselves inspire, 


Are strewn with shattered boughs ; the birds 


To vex mankind with evils manifold, 


are silent ; 


So that disease and pain 


The flowers, downtrodden by the wind, lie 


O'er the whole earth may reign, 


dead ; 


And nevermore return the Age of Gold. 


The swollen rivulet sobs with secret pain ; 




The melancholy reeds whisper together 


pandora {waking). 


As if some dreadful deed had been com- 


A voice said in my sleep : " Do not delaj r : 


mitted 


Do not delay ; the golden moments fly ! 


They dare not name, and all the air is 


The oracle hath forbidden ; yet not thee 


heavy 


Doth it forbid, but Epimetheus only ! " 


With an unspoken sorrow ! Premonitions 


I am alone. These faces in the mirrors 


Foreshadowings of some terrible disaster 


Are but the shadows and phantoms of my- 


Oppress my heart. Ye Gods, avert the 


self ; 


omen ! 


They cannot help nor hinder. No one sees 




me, 


pandora, coming from the house. 


Save the all-seeing Gods, who, knowing 


Epimetheus, I no longer dare 


good 


To lift mine eyes to thine, nor hear thy 


And knowing evil, have created me 


voice, 


Such as I am, and filled me with desire 


Being no longer worthy of thy love. 


Of knowing good and evil like themselves. 




She approaches the chest. 


EPIMETHEUS. 


I hesitate no longer. Weal or woe, 


What hast thou done ? 


Or life or death, the moment shall decide. 




She lifts the lid. A dense mist rises from the 


PANDORA. 


chest, and fills the room. Pandora falls 


Forgive me not, but kill me 


, senseless on the floor. Storm without. 






EPIMETHEUS. 


CHORUS OF DREAMS FROM THE GATE OF HORN. 


What hast thou done ? 


Yes, the moment shall decide ! 




It already hath decided ; 


PANDORA. 


And the secret once confided 


I pray for death, not pardon 


To the keeping of the Titan 




Now is flying far and wide, 


EPIMETHEUS. 


Whispered, told on every side, 


What hast thou done ? 


To disquiet and to frighten. 






PANDORA. 


Fever of the heart and brain, 


I dare not speak of it 


Sorrow, pestilence, and pain, 




Moans of anguish, maniac laughter, 


EPIMETHEUS. 


-All the e^Us that hereafter 


Thy pallor and thy silence terrify me ! 



THE MASQUE OF PANDORA 



3o7 



PANDORA. 

I have brought wrath and ruin on thy 

house ! 
My heart hath braved the oracle that 

guarded 
The fatal secret from us, and my hand 
Lifted the lid of the mysterious chest ! 

EPIMETHEUS. 

Then all is lost ! I am indeed undone. 

PANDORA. 

I pray for punishment, and not for pardon. 

EPIMETHEUS. 

Mine is the fault, not thine. On me shall 

fall 
The vengeance of the Gods, for I betrayed 
Their secret when, in evil hour, I said 
It was a secret ; when, in evil hour, 
I left thee here alone to this temptation. 
Why did I leave thee ? 



Why didst thou return ? 
Eternal absence would have been to me 
The greatest punishment. To be left 

alone 
And face to face with my own crime, had 

been 
Just retribution. Upon me, ye Gods, 
Let all your vengeance fall ! 

EPIMETHEUS. 

On thee and me. 
I do not love thee less for what is done, 
And cannot be undone. Thy very weak- 
ness 
Hath brought thee nearer to me, and hence- 
forth 
My love will have a sense of pity in it, 
Making it less a worship than before. 

PANDORA. 

Pity me not ; pity is degradation. 
Love me and kill me. 

EPIMETHEUS. 

Beautiful Pandora ! 
Thou art a Goddess still ! 

PANDORA. 

I am a woman ; 
And the insurgent demon in my nature, 



That made me brave the oracle, revolts 
At pity and compassion. Let me die ; 
What else remains for me ? 

EPIMETHEUS. 

Youth, hope, and love : 
To build a new life on a ruined life, 
To make the future fairer than the past, 
And make the past appear a troubled 

dream. 
Even now in passing through the garden 

walks 
Upon the ground I saw a fallen nest 
Ruined and full of rain ; and over me 
Beheld the uncomplaining birds already 
Busy in building a new habitation. 

PANDORA. 

Auspicious omen ! 

EPIMETHEUS. 

May the Eumenides 
Put out their torches and behold us not, 
And fling away their whips of scorpions 
And touch us not. 

PANDORA. 

Me let them punish. 
Only through punishment of our evil deeds, 
Only through suffering, are we reconciled 
To the immortal Gods and to ourselves. 

CHORUS OF THE EUMENIDES. 

Never shall souls like these 

Escape the Eumenides, 
The daughters dark of Acheron and Night I 

Unquenched our torches glare, 

Our scourges in the air 
Send forth prophetic sounds before they 
smite. 

Never by lapse of time 

The soul defaced by crime 
Into its former self returns again ; 

For every guilty deed 

Holds in itself the seed 
Of retribution and undying pain. 

Never shall be the loss 

Restored, till Helios 
Hath purified them with his heavenly fires { 

Then what was lost is won, 

And the new life begun, 
Kindled with nobler passions and desires. 



THE HANGING OF THE CRANE 



The lights are out, and gone are all the 

guests 
That thronging came with merriment and 
jests 
To celebrate the Hanging of the Crane 
In the new house, — into the night are 

gone; 
But still the fire upon the hearth burns on, 
And I alone remain. 

O fortunate, O happy day, 
When a new household finds its place 
Among the myriad homes of earth, 
Like a new star just sprung to birth, 
And rolled on its harmonious way 
Into the boundless realms of space I 

So said the guests in speech and song, 
As in the chimney, burning bright, 
We hung the iron crane to-night, 
And merry was the feast and long. 



And now I sit and muse on what may 

be, 
And in my vision see, or seem to see, 
Through floating vapors interfused with 
light, 
Shapes indeterminate, that gleam and fade, 
As shadows passing into deeper shade 
Sink and elude the sight. 

For two alone, there in the hall, 

Is spread the table round and small ; 

Upon the polished silver shine 

The evening lamps, but, more divine, 

The light of love shines over all ; 



Of love, that says not mine and thine f 
But ours, for ours is thine and mine. 

They want no guests, to come between 
Their tender glances like a screen, 
And tell them tales of land and sea, 
And whatsoever may betide 
The great, forgotten world outside ; 
They want no guests ; they needs must 

be 
Each other's own best company. 






ill 

The picture fades ; as at a village fair 
A showman's views, dissolving into air, 

Again appear transfigured on the screen, 
So in my fancy this ; and now once more, 
In part transfigured, through the oper* 
door 
Appears the selfsame scene. 

Seated, I see the two again, 
But not alone ; they entertain 
A little angel unaware, 
With face as round as is the mooi% 
A royal guest with flaxen hair, 
Who, throned upon his lofty chair, 
Drums on the table with his spoon, 
Then drops it careless on the floor, 
To grasp at things unseen before. 

Are these celestial manners ? these 
The ways that win, the arts that please i 
Ah yes ; consider well the guest, 
And whatsoe'er he does seems best 5 
He ruleth by the right divine 
Of helplessness, so lately born 
In purple chambers of the morn, 
As sovereign over thee and thine. 



THE HANGING OF THE CRANE 



3<* 



He speaketh not ; and yet there lies 
A conversation in his eyes ; 
The golden silence of the Greek, 
The gravest wisdom of the wise, 
Not spoken in language, but in looks 
More legible than printed books, 
As if he could but would not speak. 
And now, O monarch absolute, 
Thy power is put to proof ; for, lo ! 
Resistless, fathomless, and slow, 
The nurse comes rustling like the sea, 
And pushes back thy chair and thee, 
And so good night to King Canute. 

IV 

As one who walking in a forest sees 
A lovely landscape through the parted 
trees, 
Then sees it not, for boughs that inter- 
vene ; 
Or as we see the moon sometimes revealed 
Through drifting clouds, and then again 
concealed, 
So I behold the scene. 

There are two guests at table now ; 
The king, deposed and older grown, 
No longer occupies the throne, — 
The crown is on his sister's brow ; 
A Princess from the Fairy Isles, 
The very pattern girl of girls, 
All covered and embowered in curls, 
Rose-tinted from the Isle of Flowers, 
And sailing with soft, silken sails 
From far-off Dreamland into ours. 
Above their bowls with rims of blue 
rour azure eyes of deeper hue 
Are looking, dreamy with delight ; 
Limpid as planets that emerge 
Above the ocean's rounded verge, 
Soft-shining through the summer night. 
Steadfast they gaze, yet nothing see 
Beyond the horizon of their bowls ; 
Nor care they for the world that rolls 
With all its freight of troubled souls 
Into the days that are to be. 



Again the tossing boughs shut out the 

scene, 
Again the drifting vapors intervene, 
And the moon's pallid disk is hidden 

quite ; 



And now I see the table wider grown, 
As round a pebble into water thrown 
Dilates a ring of light. 

I see the table wider grown, 

I see it garlanded with guests, 

As if fair Ariadne's Crown 

Out of the sky had fallen down ; 

Maidens within whose tender breasts 

A thousand restless hopes and fears, 

Forth reaching to the coming years, 

Flutter awhile, then quiet lie, 

Like timid birds that fain would fly, 

But do not dare to leave their nests ; — 

And youths, who in their strength elat* 

Challenge the van and front of fate, 

Eager as champions to be 

In the divine knight-errantry 

Of youth, that travels sea and land 

Seeking adventures, or pursues, 

Through cities, and through solitudes 

Frequented by the lyric Muse, 

The phantom with the beckoning hand, 

That still allures and still eludes. 

O sweet illusions of the brain ! 

O sudden thrills of fire and frost ! 

The world is bright while ye remain, 

And dark and dead when ye are lost ! 



VI 

The meadow-brook, that seemeth to stand 

still, 
Quickens its current as it nears the mill ; 
And so the stream of Time that linger 
eth 
In level places, and so dull appears, 
Runs with a swifter current as it near* 
The gloomy mills of Death. 

And now, like the magician's scruil, 
That in the owner's keeping shrinks 
With every wish he speaks or thinks, 
Till the last wish consumes the whole, 
The table dwindles, and again 
I see the two alone remain. 
The crown of stars is broken in parts ,' 
Its jewels, brighter than the day, 
Have one by one been stolen away 
To shine in other homes and hearts. 
One is a wanderer now afar 
In Ceylon or in Zanzibar, 
Or sunny regions of Cathay ; 
And one is in the boisterous camp 
Mid clink of arms and horses* tramp 



3io 



MORITURI SALUTAMUS 



And battle's terrible array. 

I see the patient mother read, 

With aching heart, of wrecks that float 

Disabled on those seas remote, 

Or of some great heroic deed 

On battle-fields, where thousands bleed 

To lift one hero into fame. 

Anxious she bends her graceful head 

Above these chronicles of pain, 

And trembles with a secret dread 

Lest there among the drowned or slain 

She find the one beloved name. 



VII 

After a day of cloud and wind and rain 
Sometimes the setting sun breaks out 
again, 
And, touching all the darksome woods 
with light, 
Smiles on the fields, until they laugh and 

sing, 
Then like a ruby from the horizon's ring 
Drops down into the night. 

What see I now ? The night is fair, 
The storm of grief, the clouds of care, 
The wind, the rain, have passed away ; 



The lamps are lit, the fires burn bright, 

The house is full of life and light ; 

It is the Golden Wedding day. 

The guests come thronging in once mor^ 

Quick footsteps sound along the floor, 

The trooping children crowd the stair ? 

And in and out and everywhere 

Flashes along the corridor 

The sunshine of their golden hair. 

On the round table in the hall 

Another Ariadne's Crown 

Out of the sky hath fallen down ; 

More than one Monarch of the Mooa 

Is drumming with his silver spoon ; 

The light of love shines over all. 

O fortunate, O happy day ! 

The people sing, the people say. 

The ancient bridegroom and the bride^ 

Smiling contented and serene 

Upon the blithe, bewildering scene, 

Behold, well pleased, on every side 

Their forms and features multiplied, 

As the reflection of a light 

Between two burnished mirrors gleam% 

Or lamps upon a bridge at night 

Stretch on and on before the sight, 

Till the long vista endless seems. 






MORITURI SALUTAMUS 



POEM FOR THE FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY OF THE CLASS OF 
1825 IN BOWDOIN COLLEGE 

Tempora labuntur, tacitisque senescimus annis, 
Et fugiunt freuo non remorante dies. 

Ovid, Fastorum. Lib. vi. 



" O C<ESAR, we who are about to die 
Salute you ! " was the gladiators' cry 
In the arena, standing face to face 
With death and with the Roman popu- 
lace. 

O ye familiar scenes, — ye groves of pine, 
That once were mine and are no longer 

mine, — 
Thou river, widening through the meadows 

green 
To the vast sea, so near and yet unseen, — 



Ye halls, in whose seclusion and repose 
Phantoms of fame, like exhalations, rose 
And vanished, — we who are about to die, 
Salute you ; earth and air and sea and 

sky, 
And the Imperial Sun that scatters down 
His sovereign splendors upon grove and 

town. 

Ye do not answer us ! ye do not hear ! 
We are forgotten; and in your austere 
And calm indifference, ye little care 






MORITURI SALUTAMUS 



3»» 



Whether we come or go, or whence or 

where. 
What passing generations fill these halls, 
What passing voices echo from these walls, 
Ye heed not ; we are only as the blast, 
A moment heard, and then forever past. 

Not so the teachers who in earlier days 
Led our bewildered feet through learning's 

maze ; 
They answer us — alas ! what have I said ? 
What greetings come there from the voice- 
less dead ? 
What salutation, welcome, or reply ? 
What pressure from the hands that lifeless 

lie? 
They are no longer here ; they all are gone 
Into the land of shadows, — all save one. 
Honor and reverence, and the good repute 
That follows faithful service as its fruit, 
Be unto him, whom living we salute. 

The great Italian poet, when he made 

His dreadful journey to the realms of 

shade, 
Met there the old instructor of his youth, 
And cried in tones of pity and of ruth : 
I Oh, never from the memory of my heart 
Your dear, paternal image shall depart, 
Who while on earth, ere yet by death 

surprised, 
Taught me how mortals are immortalized ; 
How grateful am I for that patient care 
Ail my life long my language shall de- 
clare." 

To-day we make the poet's words our own, 
And utter them in plaintive undertone ; 
Nor to the living only be they said, 
But to the other living called the dead, 
Whose dear, paternal images appear 
Not wrapped in gloom, but robed in sun- 
shine here ; 
Whose simple lives, complete and without 

flaw, 
Were part and parcel of great Nature's 

law ; 
Who said not to their Lord, as if afraid, 
" Here is thy talent in a napkin laid," 
But labored in their sphere, as men who live 
In the delight that work alone can give. 
Peace be to them ; eternal peace and rest, 
And the fulfilment of the great behest : 
"Ye have been faithful over a few things, 
Over ten cities shall ye reign as kings." 



And ye who fill the places we once filled, 
And follow in the furrows that we tilled, 
Young men, whose generous hearts are 

beating high, 
We who are old, and are about to die, 
Salute you ; hail you ; take your hands in 

ours, 
And crown you with our welcome as with 

flowers ! 

How beautiful is youth ! how bright \t 

gleams 
With its illusions, aspirations, dreams ! 
Book of Beginnh-js, Story without End, 
Each maid a heroine, and each man a friend i 
Aladdin's Lamp, and Fortunatus' Purse, 
That holds the treasures of the universe ! 
All possibilities are in its hands, 
No danger daunts it, and no foe with- 
stands ; 
In its sublime audacity of faith, 
" Be thou removed ! " it to the mountain 

saith, 
And with ambitious feet, secure and proud, 
Ascends the ladder leaning on the cloud ! 

As ancient Priam at the Scsean gate 
Sat on the walls of Troy in regal state 
With the old men, too old and weak to 

fight, 
Chirping like grasshoppers in their do- 
light 
To see the embattled hosts, with spear and 

shield, 
Of Trojans and Achaians in the field ; 
So from the snowy summits of our years 
We see you in the plain, as each appears, 
And question of you ; asking, " Who is he 
That towers above the others ? Which may 

be 
Atreides, Menelaus, Odysseus, 
Ajax the great, or bold Idomeneus ? " 

Let him not boast who puts his armor on 
As he who puts it off, the battle done. 
Study yourselves ; and most of all note 

well 
Wherein kind Nature meant you to excel. 
Not every blossom ripens into fruit ; 
Minerva, the inventress of the flute, 
Flung it aside, when she her face surveyed 
Distorted in a fountain as she played ; 
The unlucky Marsyas found it, and his 

fate 
Was one to make the bravest hesitate. 



512 



MORITURI SALUTAMUS 



Write on your doors the saying wise and 

old, 
"Be bold! be bold!" and everywhere, 

" Be bold ; 
Be not too bold ! " Yet better the excess 
Than the defect ; better the more than 

less ; 
Better like Hector in the field to die, 
Than like a perfumed Paris turn and fly. 

And now, my classmates ; ye remaining few 
That number not the half of those we knew, 
Ye, against whose familiar names not yet 
The fatal asterisk of death is set, 
ITe I salute ! The horologe of Time 
Strikes the half-century with a solemn 

chime, 
And summons us together once again, 
The joy of meeting not unmixed with pain. 

Where are the others ? Voices from the 

deep 
Caverns of darkness answer me : " They 

sleep ! " 
I name no names ; instinctively I feel 
Each at some well-remembered grave will 

kneel, 
And from the inscription wipe the weeds 

and moss, 
For every heart best knoweth its own loss. 
I see their scattered gravestones gleaming 

white 
Through the pale dusk of the impending 

night ; 
O'er all alike the impartial sunset throws 
Its golden lilies mingled with the rose ; 
We give to each a tender thought, and pass 
Out of the graveyards with their tangled 

grass, 
Onto these scenes frequented by our feet 
When we were young, and life was fresh 

and sweet. 

What shall I say to you ? What can I say 
Better than silence is ? When I survey 
This throng of faces turned to meet my 

own, 
Friendly and fair, and yet to me unknown, 
Transformed the very landscape seems to 

be ; 
It is the same, yet not the same to me. 
So many memories crowd upon my brain, 
So many ghosts are in the wooded plain, 
i fain would steal away, with noiseless 

tread, 



As from a house where some one lieth dead 
I cannot go ; — I pause ; — 1 hesitate ; 
My feet reluctant linger at the gate ; 
As one who struggles in a troubled dream 
To speak and cannot, to myself I seem. 

Vanish the dream ! Vanish the idle fears 
Vanish the rolling mists of fifty years ! 
Whatever time or space may intervene, 
I will not be a stranger in this scene. 
Here every doubt, all indecision, ends ; 
Hail, my companions, comrades, classmates, 
friends ! 

Ah me ! the fifty years since last we met 

Seem to me fifty folios bound and set 

By Time, the great transcriber, on his 

shelves, 
Wherein are written the histories of our- 
selves. 
What tragedies, what comedies, are there ; 
What joy and grief, what rapture and de- 
spair ! 
What chronicles of triumph and defeat, 
Of struggle, and temptation, and retreat ! 
What records of regrets, and doubts, and 

fears ! 
What pages blotted, blistered by our tears ! 
What lovely landscapes on the margin 

shine, 
What sweet, angelic faces, what divine 
And holy images of love and trust, 
Undimmed' by age, un soiled by damp oi 
dust ! 

Whose hand shall dare to open and ex- 
plore 
These volumes, closed and clasped forever- 
more ? 
Not mine. With reverential feet I pass ; 
I hear a voice that cries, " Alas ! alas f 
Whatever hath been written shall remain, 
Nor be erased nor written o'er again ; 
The unwritten only still belongs to thee : 
Take heed, and ponder well what that shall 
be." 

As children frightened by a thunder-cloud 
Are reassured if some one reads aloud 
A tale of wonder, with enchantment fraught, 
Or wild adventure, that diverts theii 

thought, 
Let me endeavor with a tale to chase 
The gathering shadows of the time and 

place, 



MORITURI SALUTAMUS 



313 



And banish what we all too deeply feel 
Wholly to say, or wholly to conceal. 

In mediaeval Rome, I know not where, 
There stood an image with its arm in air, 
And on its lifted finger, shining clear, 
A golden ring with the device, " Strike 

here ! " 
Greatly the people wondered, though none 

guessed 
The meaning that these words but half 

expressed, 
Until a learned clerk, who at noonday 
With downcast eyes was passing on his way, 
Paused, and observed the spot, and marked 

it well, 
Whereon the shadow of the finger fell ; 
And, coming back at midnight, delved, and 

found 
A secret stairway leading underground. 
Down this he passed into a spacious hall, 
Lit by a flaming jewel on the wall ; 
And opposite, in threatening attitude, 
With bow and shaft a brazen statue stood. 
Upon its forehead, like a coronet, 
W r ere these mysterious words of menace 

set : 
" That which I am, I am ; my fatal aim 
None can escape, not even yon luminous 

flame!" 

Midway the hall was a fair table placed, 
With cloth of gold, and golden cups en- 
chased 
With rubies, and the plates and knives were 

gold, 
And gold the bread and viands manifold. 
Around it, silent, motionless, and sad, 
Were seated gallant knights in armor clad, 
And ladies beautiful with plume and zone, 
But they were stone, their hearts within 

were stone ; 
And the vast hall was filled in every part 
With silent crowds, stony in face and heart. 

Long at the scene, bewildered and amazed, 
The trembling clerk in speechless wonder 

gazed ; 
Then from the table, by his greed made 

bold, 
He seized a goblet and a knife of gold, 
And suddenly from their seats the guests 

upsprang, 
The vaulted ceiling with loud clamors rang, 
The archer sped his arrow, at their call, 



Shattering the lambent jewel cmi the wall, 
And all was dark around and overhead ; — 
Stark on the floor the luckless clerk lay 
dead ! 

The writer of this legend then records 
Its ghostly application in these words : 
The image is the Adversary old, 
Whose beckoning finger points to realms oi 

gold; 
Our lusts and passions are the downward 

stair 
That leads the soul from a diviner air ; 
The archer, Death ; the flaming jewelj 

Life ; 
Terrestrial goods, the goblet and the knife ; 
The knights and ladies, all whose flesh and 

bone 
By avarice have been hardened into stone ; 
The clerk, the scholar whom the love of pelf 
Tempts from his books and from his nobler 

self. 

The scholar and the world ! The endless 

strife, 
The discord in the harmonies of life ! 
The love of learning, the sequestered nooks, 
And all the sweet serenity of books ; 
The market-place, the eager love of gain, 
Whose aim is vanity, and whose end is pain ! 

But why, you ask me, should this tale be 

told 
To men grown old, or who are growing old ? 
It is too late ! Ah, nothing is too late 
Till the tired heart shall cease to palpitate. 
Cato learned Greek at eighty ; Sophocles 
Wrote his grand (Edipus, and Simonides 
Bore off the prize of verse from his com- 
peers, 
When each had numbered more than four- 
score years, 
And Theophrastus, at fourscore and ten, 
Had but begun his " Characters of Men." 
Chaucer, at Woodstock with the nightin- 
gales, 
At sixty wrote the Canterbury Tales ; 
Goethe at Weimar, toiling to the last, 
Completed Faust when eighty years were 

past. 
These are indeed exceptions ; but they show 
How far the gulf-stream of our youth mav 

flow 
Into the arctic regions of our lives, 
Where little else than life itself survives. 



314 



A BOOK OF SONNETS 






As the barometer foretells the storm 
While still the skies are clear, the weather 

warm, 
So something in us, as old age draws near, 
Betrays the pressure of the atmosphere. 
The nimble mercury, ere we are aware, 
Descends the elastic ladder of the air ; 
The telltale blood in artery and vein 
Sinks from its higher levels in the brain ; 
Whatever poet, orator, or sage 
May say of it, old age is still old age. 
It is the waning, not the crescent moon ; 
The dusk of evening, not the blaze of noon ; 
It is not strength, but weakness ; not de- 
sire, 
But its surcease ; not the fierce heai; of 

fire, 
The burning and consuming element, 
But that of ashes and of embers spent, 



In which some living sparks we still disceri^ 
Enough to warm, but not enough to burn. 

What then ? Shall we sit idly down and 

say 
The night hath come ; it is no longer day ? 
The night hath not yet come ; we are not 

quite 
Cut off from labor by the failing light ; 
Something remains for us to do or dare ; 
Even the oldest tree some fruit may bear | 
Not (Edipus Coloneus, or Greek Ode, 
Or tales of pilgrims that one morning rode 
Out of the gateway of the Tabard Inn, 
But other something, would we but begin ; 
For age is opportunity no less 
Than youth itself, though in another dress, 
And as the evening twilight fades away 
The sky is filled with stars, invisible by day. 



A BOOK OF SONNETS 



THREE FRIENDS OF MINE 



When I remember them, those friends of 
mine, 

"Who are no longer here, the noble three, 

Who half my life were more than friends 
to me, 

And whose discourse was like a generous 
wine, 
I most of all remember the divine 

Something, that shone in them, and made 
us see 

The archetypal man, and what might be 

The amplitude of Nature's first design. 
Cn vain I stretch my hands to clasp their 
hands ; 

I cannot find them. Nothing now is left 

But a majestic memory. They mean- 
while 
Zander together in Elysian lands, 

Perchance remembering me, who am 
bereft 

Of their dear presence, and, remember- 
ing, smile. 



II 

la Attica thy birthplace should have been, 
Or the Ionian Isles, or where the seas 



Encircle in their arms the Cyclatles, 
So wholly Greek wast thou in thy se- 
rene 
And childlike joy of life, O Philhellene f 
Around thee would have swarmed tits 

Attic bees ; 
Homer had been thy friend, or Socrates, 
And Plato welcomed thee to his de- 
mesne. 
For thee old legends breathed historic 
breath ; 
Thou sawest Poseidon in the purple sea, 
And in the sunset Jason's fleece of gold ! 
Oh, what hadst thou to do with cruel Death, 
Who wast so full of life, or Death with 

thee, 
That thou shouldst die before thou hadst 
grown old 1 



III 

I stand again on the familiar shore, 

And hear the waves of the distracted 

sea 
Piteously calling and lamenting thee, 
And waiting restless at thy cottage door. 

The rocks, the sea-weed on the ocean floor, 

The willows in the meadow, and the free 

Wild winds of the Atlantic welcome me J 

Then why shouldst thou be dead, and 

come no more ? 



MILTON 



355 



AJi, why shouldst thou be dead, when com- 
mon men 
Are busy with their trivial affairs, 
Having and holding ? Why, when thou 
hadst read 
Nature's mysterious manuscript, and then 
Wast ready to reveal the truth it bears, 
Why art thou silent ? Why shouldst 
thou be dead ? 



IV 

:£iver, that stealest with such silent pace 
Around the City of the Dead, where lies 
A friend who bore thy name, and whom 

these eyes 
Shall see no more in his accustomed 

place, 
Linger and fold him in thy soft embrace, 
And say good night, for now the western 

skies 
Are red with sunset, and gray mists arise 
Like damps that gather on a dead man's 

face. 
Good night ! good night ! as we so oft have 

said 
Beneath this roof at midnight, in the days 
That are no more, and shall no more 

return. 
Thou hast but taken thy lamp and gone to 

bed ; 
I stay a little longer, as one stays 
To cover up the embers that still burn. 



the doors are all wide open ; at the gate 
The blossomed lilacs counterfeit a blaze, 
And seem to warm the air ; a dreamy 

haze 
Hangs o'er the Brighton meadows like a 
fate, 
And on their margin, with sea-tides elate, 
The flooded Charles, as in the happier 

days, 
Writes the last letter of his name, and 

stays 
His restless steps, as if compelled to wait. 
I also wait ; but they will come no more, 
Those friends of mine, whose presence 

satisfied 
The thirst and hunger of my heart. Ah 
me ! 
JThey have forgotten the pathway to my 
door ! 



Something is gone from nature since thet 

died, 
And summer is not summer, nor can foe. 



CHAUCER 

An old man in a lodge within a park ; 
The chamber walls depicted all around 
With portraitures of huntsman, hawkf 

and hound, 
And the hurt deer. He listeneth to the 
lark, 
Whose song comes with the sunshine 
through the dark 
Of painted glass in leaden lattice bound ; 
He listeneth and he laugheth at the 

sound, 
Then writeth in a book like any clerk. 
He is the poet of the dawn, who wrote 
The Canterbury Tales, and his old age 
Made beautiful with song ; and as I read 
I hear the crowing cock, I hear the note 
Of lark and linnet, and from every page 
Rise odors of ploughed field or flowery 
mead. 

SHAKESPEARE 

A vision as of crowded city streets, 
With human life in endless overflow ; 
Thunder of thoroughfares ; trumpets 

that blow 
To battle ; clamor, in obscure retreats, 
Of sailors landed from their anchored 

fleets ; 
Tolling of bells in turrets, and below 
Voices of children, and bright flowers 

that throw 
O'er garden-walls their intermingled 

sweets ! 
This vision comes to me when I unfold 
The volume of the Poet paramount, 
Whom all the Muses ioved, not one 

alone ; — 
Into his hands they put the lyre of gold, 
And, crowned with sacred laurel at their 

fount, 
Placed him as Musagetes on their throne* 



MILTON 

I PACE the sounding sea-beach and behold 
How the voluminous billows roll and run, 



3io 



A BOOK OF SONNETS 



Upheaving and subsiding, while the sun 
Shines through their sheeted emerald far 

unrolled, 
And the ninth wave, slow gathering fold 

by fold 
All its loose-flowing garments into one, 
Plunges upon the shore, and floods the 

dun 
Pale reach of sands, and changes them to 

gold. 
So in majestic cadence rise and fall 
The mighty undulations of thy song, 
O sightless bard, England's Mseonides ! 
And ever and anon, high over all 

Uplifted, a ninth wave superb and 

strong, 
Floods all the soul with its melodious 



KEATS 

The young Endymion sleeps Endymion's 

sleep ; 
The shepherd-boy whose tale was left 

half told ! 
The solemn grove uplifts its shield cf 

gold 
To the red rising moon, and loud and 

deep 
The nightingale is singing from the steep ; 
It is midsummer, but the air is cold ; 
Can it be death ? Alas, beside the fold 
A shepherd's pipe lies shattered near his 

sheep. 
Lo ! in the moonlight gleams a marble 

white, 
On which I read : " Here lieth one whose 

name 
Was writ in water." And was this the 

meed 
Of his sweet singing ? Rather let me 

write : 
3 'The smoking flax before it burst to 

flame 
Was quenched by death, and broken the 

bruised reed." 

THE GALAXY 

Torrent of light and river of the air, 
Along whose bed the glimmering stars 

are seen 
Like gold and silver sands in some ravine 
Where mountain streams have left their 

channels bare ! 



The Spaniard sees in thee the pathway 

where 
His patron saint descended in the sheen 
Of his celestial armor, on serene 
And quiet nights, when all the heavenfe 

were fair. 
Not this I see, nor yet the ancient fable 
Of Phaeton's wild course, that scorched! 

the skies 
Where'er the hoofs of his hot courses 

trod ; 
But the white drift of worlds o'er chasms 

of sable, 
The star-dust, that is whirled aloft and 

flies 
From the invisible chariot- wheels of God 



THE SOUND OF THE SEA 

The sea awoke at midnight from its sleep, 
And round the pebbly beaches far and 

wide 
I heard the first wave of the rising tide 
Rush onward with uninterrupted sweep ; 
A voice out of the silence of the deep, 
A sound mysteriously multiplied 
As of a cataract from the mountain's 

side, 
Or roar of winds upon a wooded steep. 
So comes to us at times, from the un- 
known 
And inaccessible solitudes of being, 
The rushing of the sea-tides of the soul ; 
And inspirations, that we deem our own, 
Are some divine foreshadowing and fore- 
seeing 
Of things beyond our reason or control. 



A SUMMER DAY BY THE SEA 

The sun is set ; and in his latest beams 
Yon little cloud of ashen gray and gold. 
Slowly upon the amber air unrolled, 
The falling mantle of the Prophet 
seems. 
From the dim headlands many a light-house 
gleams, 
The street-lamps of the ocean ; and be- 
hold, 
O'erhead the banners of the night un- 
fold ; 
The day hath passed into the lanr oj 
dreams. 



SLEEP 



3i7 



summer day beside the joyous sea ! 
summer day so wonderful and white, 
So full of gladness and so full of pain ! 

Forever and forever shalt thou be 

To some the gravestone of a dead delight, 
To some the landmark of a new domain. 



THE TIDES 

I SAW the long line of the vacant shore, 
The sea-weed and the shells upon the 

sand, 
And the brown rocks left bare on every 

hand, 
As if the ebbing tide would flow no 

more. 
Then heard I, more distinctly than before, 
The-ocean breathe and its great breast 

expand. 
And hurrying came on the defenceless 

land 
The insurgent waters with tumultuous 

roar. 
All thought and feeling and desire, I said, 
Love, laughter, and the exultant joy of 

song 
Have ebbed from me forever ! Sud- 
denly o'er me 
They swept again from their deep ocean 

bed, 
And in a tumult of delight, and strong 
As youth, and beautiful as youth, upbore 

me. 



A SHADOW 

I said unto myself, if I were d ad, 

What would befall these children ? 

What would be 
Their fate, who now are looking up to me 
For help and furtherance? Their lives, 
I said, 
Would be a volume wherein I have read 
But the first chapters, and no longer see 
To read the rest of their dear history, 
So full of beauty and so full of dread. 
Be comforted; the world is very old, 
And generations pass, as they have 

passed, 
A troop of shadows moving with the sun; 
Thousands of times has the old tale been 
told; 

- 



The world belongs to those who come 

the last, 
They will find hope and strength as we 

have done. 



A NAMELESS GRAVE 

" A soldier of the Union mustered out/'" 
Is the inscription on an unknown grave 
At Newport News, beside the salt-ses 

wave, 
Nameless and dateless; sentinel or scout 
Shot down in skirmish, or disastrous rout 
Of battle, when the loud artillery drave 
Its iron wedges through the ranks of 

brave 
And doomed battalions, storming the re- 
doubt. 
Thou unknown hero sleeping by the sea 
In thy forgotten grave ! with secret 

shame 
I feel my pulses beat, my forehead burn, 
When I remember thou hast given for 
me 
All that thou hadst, thy life, thy very 

name, 
And I can give thee nothing in return. 



SLEEP 

Lull me to sleep, ye winds, whose fitful 

sound 
Seems from some faint iEolian harp- 
string caught; 
Seal up the hundred wakeful eyes o' 

thought 
As Hermes with his lyre in sleep pro- 

found 
The hundred wakeful eyes of Argus bound* 
For I am weary, and am overwrought 
With too much toil, with too much care 

distraught, 
And with the iron crown of anguish 

crowned. 
Lay thy soft hand upon my brow and 

cheek, 

peaceful Sleep ! until from pain re- 

leased 

1 breathe again uninterrupted breath ! 
Ah, with what subtle meaning did the 

Greek 
Call thee the lesser mystery at the feast 
Whereof the greater mystery is death ! 



ai8 



A BOOK OF SONNETS 



THE OLD BRIDGE AT FLORENCE 

Taddeo Gaddi built me, I am old, 

Five centuries old. I plant my foot of 

stone 
Upon the Arno, as St. Michael's own 
Was planted on the dragon. Fold by 
fold 
Beneath me as it struggles, I behold 

Its glistening scales. Twice hath it 

overthrown 
My kindred and companions. Me alone 
It moveth not, but is by me controlled. 
C can remember when the Medici 
Were driven from Florence ; longer still 

ago 
The final wars of Ghibelline and Guelf. 
Florence adorns me with her jewelry ; 
And when I think that Michael Angelo 
Hath leaned on me, I glory in myself. 



IL PONTE VECCHIO DI FIRENZE 

Gaddi mi fece ; il Ponte Vecchio sono ; 
Cinquecent' anni gia sull' Arno pianto 
II piede, come il suo Michele Santo 
Piant6 sul draco. Mentre ch' io ragiono 

Lo vedo torcere con flebil suono 

Le rilucenti scaglie. Ha questi affranto 
Due volte i miei maggior. Me solo in- 

tanto 
Neppure muove, ed io non 1' abbandono, 

lo mi rammento quando fur cacciati 
I Medici ; pur quando Ghibellino 
E Guelfo fecer pace mi rammento. 

Fiorenza i suoi giojelli m' ha prestati ; 
E quando penso ch' Agnolo il divino 
Su me posava, insuperbir mi sento. 



NATURE 

A.S a fond mother, when the day is o'er, 
Leads by the hand her little child to 

bed, 
Half willing, half reluctant to be led, 
And leave his broken playthings on the 

floor, 
Still gazing at them through the open door, 
Nor wholly reassured and comforted 
By promises of others in their stead, 
Which, though more splendid, may not 

please him more ; 



So Nature deals with us, and takes away 
Our playthings one by one, and by the 

hand 
Leads us to rest so gently, that we go 
Scarce knowing if we wish to go or stay, 
Being too full of sleep to understand 
How far the unknown transcends the 
what we know. 



IN THE CHURCHYARD AT 
TARRYTOWN 

Here lies the gentle humorist, who died 
In the bright Indian Summer of his 

fame ! 
A simple stone, with but a date and 

name, 
Marks his secluded resting-place beside 
The river that he loved and glorified. 
Here in the autumn of his days he came, 
But the dry leaves of life were all aflame 
With tints that brightened and were 

multiplied. 
How sweet a life was his ; how sweet a 

death ! 
Living, to wing with mirth the weary 

hours, 
Or with romantic tales the heart to 

cheer ; 
Dying, to leave a memory like the breath 
Of summers full of sunshine and of 

showers, 
A grief and gladness in the atmosphere, 



ELIOT'S OAK 

Tkou ancient oak ! whose myriad leaves 

arc loud 
With sounds of unintelligible speech, 
Sounds as of surges on a shingly beach, 
Or multitudinous murmurs of a crowd ; 
With some mysterious gift of tongues 

endowed, 
Thou speakest a different dialect tc 

each ; 
To me a language that no man can 

teach, 
Of a lost race, long vanished like a 

cloud. 
For underneath thy shade, in days remote { 
Seated like Abraham at eventide 
Beneath the oaks of Mamre, the rut 

known 



PARKER CLEAVELAND 



3i9 



Apostle of the Indians, Eliot, wrote 
His Bible in a language that hath died 
And is forgotten, save by thee alone. 



THE DESCENT OF THE MUSES 

Nine sisters, beautiful in form and face, 
Came from their convent on the shining 

heights 
Of Pierus, the mountain of delights, 
To dwell among the people at its base. 
Then seemed the world to change. All 

time and space, 
Splendor of cloudless days and starry 

nights, 
And men and manners, and all sounds 

and sights, 
Had a new meaning, a diviner grace. 
Proud were these sisters, but were not too 

proud 
To teach in schools of little country 

towns 
Science and song, and all the arts that 

please; 
So that while housewives span, and farmers 

ploughed, 
Their comely daughters, clad in home- 
spun gowns, 
Learned the sweet songs of the Pierides. 



VENICE 

White swan of cities, slumbering in thy 
nest 
So wonderfully built among the reeds 
Of the lagoon, that fences thee and 

feeds, 
As sayeth thy old historian and thy 
guest ! 
White water-lily, cradled and caressed 
By ocean streams, and from the silt and 

weeds 
Lifting thy golden filaments and seeds, 
Thy sun-illumined spires, thy crown and 
crest ! 
White phantom city, whose untrodden 
streets 
Are rivers, and whose pavements are the 

shifting 
Shadows of palaces and strips of sky; 
* wait to see thee vanish like the fleets 



Seen in mirage, or towers of cloud up- 
lifting 
In air their unsubstantial masonry. 



THE POETS 

O ye dead Poets, who are living still 
Immortal iu your verse, though life be 

fled, 
And ye, O living Poets, who are dead 
Though ye are living, if neglect can kill, 
Tell me if in the darkest hours of ill, 
With drops of anguish falling fast and 

red 
From the sharp crown of thorns upon 

your head, 
Ye were not glad your errand to fulfil? 
Yes; for the gift and ministry of Song 
Have somethingin them so divinely sweet, 
It can assuage the bitterness of wrong; 
Not in the clamor of the crowded street, 
Not in the shouts and plaudits of tht 

throng, 
But in ourselves, are triumph and defeat. 



PARKER CLEAVELAND 

WRITTEN ON REVISITING BRUNSWICK 
IN THE SUMMER OF 1875 

Among the many lives that I have known, 
None I remember more serene and sweet r 
More rounded in itself and more com- 
plete, 
Than his, who lies beneath this funeral 

stone. 
These pines, that murmur in low monotone, 
These walks frequented by scholastic 

feet, 
Were all his world; but in this calm 

retreat 
For him the Teacher's chair became a 

throne. 

With fond affection memory loves to dwell 

On the old days, when his example made 

A pastime of the toil of tongue and pen; 

And now, amid the groves he loved so well 

That naught could lure him from their 

grateful shade, 
He sleeps, but wakes elsewhere, for God 

hath said. Amen. 



320 



A BOOK OF SONNETS 



THE HARVEST MOON 

It is the Harvest Moon ! On gilded 

vanes 
And roofs of villages, on woodland 

crests 
And their aerial neighborhoods of nests 
Deserted, on the curtained window-panes 
Of rooms where children sleep, on country 

lanes 
And harvest-fields, its mystic splendor 

rests ! 
Gone are the birds that were our summer 

guests ; 
With the last sheaves return the labor- 
ing wains ! 
All things are symbols : the external 

shows 
Of Nature have their image in the 

mind, 
As flowers and fruits and falling of the 

leaves ; 
The song-birds leave us at the summer's 

close, 
Only the empty nests are left behind, 
And pipings of the quail among the 

sheaves. 



TO THE RIVER RHONE 

Thou Royal River, born of sun and shower 
In chambers purple with the Alpine 

glow, _ 
Wrapped in the spotless ermine of the 

snow 
And rocked by tempests ! — at the ap- 
pointed hour 
Forth, like a steel-clad horseman from a 

tower, 
With clang and clink of harness dost 

thou go 
To meet thy vassal torrents, that below 
Rush to receive thee and obey thy 

power. 
And now thou movest in triumphal march, 
A king among the rivers ! On thy way 
A hundred towns await and welcome 

thee ; 
Bridges uplift for thee the stately arch, 
Vineyards encircle thee with garlands 

gay, 
And fleets attend thy progress to the 

sea I 



THE THREE SILENCES OF 
MOLINOS 

TO JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER 

Written to be read at the dinner given by the pub- 
lishers of The Atlantic Monthly to Mr. Whittier in hono? 
of his seventieth birthday, December 18, 1877. 

Three Silences there are : the first oi 

speech, 
The second of desire, the third of 

thought ; 
This is the lore a Spanish monk, dis- 
traught 
With dreams and visions, was the first tc 

teach. 
These Silences, commingling each with 

each, 
Made up the perfect Silence that he 

sought 
And prayed for, and wherein at times he 

caught 
Mysterious sounds from realms beyond 

our reach. 
O thou, whose daily life anticipates 

The life to come, and in whose thought 

and word 
The spiritual world preponderates, 
Hermit of Amesbury ! thou too hast heard 
Voices and melodies from beyond the 

gates, 
And speakest only when thy soul i 

stirred ! 



THE TWO RIVERS 






Slowly the hour-hand of the clock novep 

round ; 
So slowly that no human eye hath power 
To see it move ! Slowly in shine ov ; 

shower 
The painted ship above it, homeward 

bound, 
Sails, but seems motionless, as if aground 
Yet both arrive at last ; and in his tower 
The slumberous watchman wakes and 

strikes the hour, 
A mellow, measured, melancholy sound. 
Midnight ! the outpost of advancing day ! 
The frontier town and citadel of night ! 
The watershed of Time 9 from which the 

streams 



ST. JOHN'S, CAMBRIDGE 



*« 



Of Yesterday and To-morrow take their 
way, 
One to the land of promise and of light, 
One to the land of darkness and of 
dreams ! 



to River of Yesterday, with current swift 
Through chasms descending, and soon 

lost to sight, 
I do not care to follow in their flight 
The faded leaves, that on thy bosom 

drift ! 
D River of To-morrow, I uplift 
Mine eyes, and thee I follow, as the night 
Wanes into morning, and the dawning 

light 
Broadens, and all the shadows fade and 

shift ! 
I follow, follow, where thy waters run 
Through unfrequented, unfamiliar fields, 
Fragrant with flowers and musical with 

song ; 
Still follow, follow ; sure to meet the sun, 
And confident, that what the future 

yields 
Will be the right, unless myself be 

wrong. 



ill 



Yet not in vain, O River of Yesterday, 
Through chasms of darkness to the deep 

descending, 
I heard thee sobbing in the rain, and 

blending 
Thy voice with other voices far away. 
I called to thee, and yet thou wouldst not 

stay, 
But turbulent, and with thyself contend- 
ing, 
And torrent-like thy force on pebbles 

spending, 
Thou wouldst not listen to a poet*s lay. 
(Thoughts, like a loud and sudden rush of 

wings, 
Regrets and recollections of things past, 
With hints and prophecies of things to be, 
And inspirations, which, could they be 

things, 
And stay with us, and we could hold 

them fast, 
Were our good angels, — these I owe to 

thro. 



IV 

And thou, O River of To-morrow, flowing 
Between thy narrow adamantine walls, 
But beautiful, and white with waterfalls, 
And wreaths of mist, like hands the path- 
way showing; 

I hear the trumpets of the morning blow 

i»g» 
I hear thy mighty voice, that calls and 

calls, 
And see, as Ossian saw in Morven's halls, 
Mysterious phantoms, coming, beckoning, 

going ! 
It is the mystery of the unknown 

That fascinates us; we are children still, 
Wayward and wistful; with one hand we 

cling 
To the familiar things we call our own, 
And with the other, resolute of will, 
Grope in the dark for what the day will 

bring. 



BOSTON 

St. Botolph's Town ! Hither across the 

plains 
And fens of Lincolnshire, in garb aus- 
tere, 
There came a Saxon monk, and founded 

here 
A Priory, pillaged by marauding Danes, 
So that thereof no vestige now remains; 
Only a name, that, spoken loud and clear, 
And echoed in another hemisphere, 
Survives the sculptured walls and painted 

panes. 
St. Botolph's Town ! Far over leagues of 

land 
And leagues of sea looks forth its noble 

tower, 
And far around the chiming bells are 

heard; 
So may that sacred name forever stand 
A landmark, and a symbol of the power. 
That lies concentred in a single word 



ST. JOHN'S, CAMBRIDGE 

I stand beneath the tree, whose branches 
shade 
Thy western window, Chapel of St 
John ! 



322 



A BOOK OF SONNETS 



And hear its leaves repeat their benison 

On him, whose hand thy stones memorial 
laid ; 
Then I remember one of whom was said 

In the world's darkest hour, " Behold 
thy son ! " 

And see him living still, and wandering on 

And waiting for the advent long delayed. 
jSot only tongues of the apostles teach 

Lessons of love and light, but these ex- 
panding 

And sheltering boughs with all their 
leaves implore, 
And say in language clear as human speech, 

" The peace of God, that passeth under- 
standing, 

Be and abide with you forevermore ! " 



MOODS 

Oh that a Song would sing itself to me 
Out of the heart of Nature, or the heart 
Of man, the child of Nature, not of Art, 
Fresh as the morning, salt as the salt sea, 
With just enough of bitterness to be 

A medicine to this sluggish mood, and 

start 
The life-blood in my veins, and so impart 
Healing and help in this dull lethargy ! 
Alas ! not always doth the breath of song 
Breathe on us. It is like the wind that 

bloweth 
At its own will, not ours, nor tarrieth long ; 
We hear the sound thereof, but no man 
knoweth 
From whence it comes, so sudden and 

swift and strong, 
Nor whither in its wayward course it 
goeth. 



WOODSTOCK PARK 

Here in a little rustic hermitage 
Alfred the Saxon King, Alfred the Great, 
Postponed the cares of king-craft to 

translate 
The Consolations of the Roman sage. 
Sere Geoffrey Chaucer in his ripe old age 
Wrote the unrivalled Tales, which soon 

or late 
The venturous hand that strives to imitate 
Vanquished must fall on the unfinished 
page. 



Two kings were they, who ruled by right 
divine, 
And both supreme ; one in the realm of 

Truth, 
One in the realm of Fiction and of Song, 
What prince hereditary of their line, 

Uprising in the strength and flush of 
* youth, 
Their glory shall inherit and prolong ? 



THE FOUR PRINCESSES AT 
WILNA 

A PHOTOGRAPH 

Sweet faces, that from pictured casements 

lean 
As from a castle window, looking dowft 
On some gay pageant passing through a 

town, 
Yourselves the fairest figures in the 

scene ; 
With what a gentle grace, with what serene 
Unconsciousness ye wear the triple 

crown 
Of youth and beauty and the fair re- 
nown 
Of a great name, that ne'er hath tarnished 

been ! 

From your soft eyes, so innocent and sweet, 

Four spirits, sweet and innocent as they, 

Gaze on the world below, the sky above ; 

Hark ! there is some one singing in the 

street ; 
" Faith, Hope, and Love ! these three," 

he seems to say ; 
" These three ; and greatest of the tbre« 

is Love." 



HOLIDAYS 

The holiest of all holidays are those 

Kept by ourselves in silence and apart ; 
The secret anniversaries of the heart, 
When the full river of feeling over- 
flows ; — 
The happy days unclouded to their close ; 
The sudden joys that out of darkness 

start 
As flames from ashes ; swift desires that 

dart 
Like swallows singing down each wind 
that blows ! 



THE CROSS OF SNOW 



323 



White as the gleam of a receding sail, 
White as a cloud that floats and fades in 

air, 
White as the whitest lily on a stream, 
These tender memories are ; — a fairy tale 
Of some enchanted land we know not 

where, 
But lovelv as a landscape in a dream. 



WAPENTAKE 

TO ALFRED TENNYSON 

Poet ! I come to touch thy lance with mine ; 
Not as a knight, who on the listed field 
Of tourney touched his adversary's shield 
In token of defiance, but in sign 
Of homage to the mastery, which is thine, 
In English song; nor will I keep con- 
cealed, 
And voiceless as a rivulet frost-congealed, 
My admiration for thy verse divine. 
Not of the howling dervishes of song, 
Who craze the brain with their delirious 

dance, 
Art thou, O sweet historian of the heart ! 
Therefore to thee the laurel -leaves be- 
long, 
To thee our love and our allegiance, 
For thy allegiance to the poet's art. 



THE BROKEN OAR 

Once upon Iceland's solitary strand 

A poet wandered with his book and pen, 
Seeking some final word, some sweet 

Amen, 
Wherewith to close the volume in his 

hand. 



The billows rolled and plunged upon the 

sand, 
The circling sea-gulls swept beyond his 

ken, 
And from the parting cloud-rack now 

and then 
Flashed the red sunset over sea and land. 
Then by the billows at his feet was tossed 
A broken oar; and carved thereon he 

read : 
" Oft was I weary, when I toiled at 

thee;" 
And like a man, who findeth what was 

lost, 
He wrote the words, then lifted up his 

head, 
And flung his useless pen into the sea. 



THE CROSS OF SNOW 

In the long, sleepless watches of the night, 
A gentle face — the face of one long 

dead — 
Looks at me from the wall, where round 

its head 
The night-lamp casts a halo of pale light. 
Here in this room she died; and soul more 
white 
Never through martyrdom of fire was 

led 
To its repose; nor can in books be read 
The legend of a life more benedight. 
There is a mountain in the distant West 
That, sun-defying, in its deep ravines 
Displays a cross of snow upon its side. 
Such is the cross I wear upon my breast 
These eighteen years, through all the 

changing scenes 
And seasons, changeless since the day 
she died. 



BIRDS OF PASSAGE 



FLIGHT THE FOURTH 



CHARLES SUMNER * 

Garlands upon his grave 
And flowers upon his hearse, 
And to the tender heart and brave 
The tribute of this verse. 

His was the troubled life, 
The conflict and the pain, 
The grief, the bitterness of strife, 
The honor without stain. 

Like Winkelried, he took 
Into his manly breast 
Che sheaf of hostile spears, and broke 
A path for the oppressed. 

Then from the fatal field 
Upon a nation's heart 
Borne like a warrior on his shield ! — 
So should the brave depart. 

Death takes us by surprise, 
And stays our hurrying feet ; 
The great design unfinished lies, 
Our lives are incomplete. 

But in the dark unknown 
Perfect their circles seem, 
Even as a bridge's arch of stone 
Is rounded in the stream. 

Alike are life and death, 
When life in death survives, 
And the uninterrupted breath 
Inspires a thousand lives. 



Were a star quenched on high, 
For ages would its light, 
Still travelling downward from 
sky, 
Shine on our mortal sight. 

So when a great man dies, 
For years beyond our ken, 
The light he leaves behind him lies 
Upon the paths of men. 



the 



TRAVELS BY THE FIRESIDE 

The ceaseless rain is falling fast, 

And yonder gilded vane, 
Immovable for three days past, 

Points to the misty main. 



my 



It drives me in upon myself 
And to the fireside gleams, 

To pleasant books that crowd 
shelf, 
And still more pleasant dreams. 



I read whatever bards have sung 

Of lands beyond the sea, 
And the bright days when I was youn^ 

Come thronging back to me. 

In fancy I can hear again 

The Alpine torrent's roar, 
The mule-bells on the hills of Spain, 

The sea at Elsinore. 

I see the convent's gleaming wall 
Rise from its groves of pine, 

And towers of old cathedrals tall, 
And castles by the Rhine. 

I journey on by park and spire, 

Beneath centennial trees, 
Through fields with poppies all on firs 

And gleams of distant seas. 

I fear no more the dust and heat, 

JNo more I feel fatigue, 
While journeying with another's feefc 

O'er many a lengthening league. 

Let others traverse sea and land, 
And toil through various climes, 

I turn the world round with my hand 
Reading these poets' rhymes. 

From them I learn whatever lies 
Beneath each changing zone, 

And see, when looking with their eyes, 
Better than with mine own. 






MONTE CASSINO 



325 



CADENABBIA 



LAKE OF COMO 

No sound of wheels or hoof-beat breaks 
The silence of the summer day, 

is by the loveliest of all lakes 
I while the idle hours away. 

£ pace the leafy colonnade, 
Where level branches of the plane 

Above me weave a roof of shade 
Impervious to the sun and rain. 

it times a sudden rush of air 

Flutters the lazy leaves o'erhead, 
And gleams of sunshine toss and flare 
Like torches down the path I tread. 

By Somariva's garden gate 

I make the marble stairs my seat, 

And hear the water, as I wait, 

Lapping the steps beneath my feet. 

The undulation sinks and swells 

Along the stony parapets, 
And far away the floating bells 

Tinkle upon the fisher's nets. 

Silent and slow, by tower and town 
The freighted barges come and go, 

Their pendent shadows gliding down 
By town and tower submerged below. 

The hills sweep upward from the shore, 
With villas scattered one by one 

Upon their wooded spurs, and lower 
Bellaggio blazing in the sun. 

And dimly seen, a tangled mass 

Of walls and woods, of light and shade, 

Stands, beckoning up the Stelvio Pass, 
Varenna with its white cascade. 

I ask myself, Is this a dream ? 
1 Will it all vanish into air ? 
Is there a land of such supreme 
And perfect beauty anywhere ? 

Sweet vision ! Do not fade away : 
Linger, until my heart shall take 

•lito itself the summer day, 
And all the beauty of the lake ; 



Linger, until upon my brain 

Is stamped an image of the scene ; 

Then fade into the air again, 

And be as if thou hadst not been. 



MONTE CASSINO 

TERRA DI LAVORO 

Beautiful valley ! through whose vei 
dant meads 

Unheard the Garigliano glides along ; — 
The Liris, nurse of rushes and of reeds, 

The river taciturn of classic song. 

The Land of Labor and the Land of Rest, 
Where mediaeval towns are white on all 

The hillsides, and where every mountain's 
crest 
Is an Etrurian or a Roman wall. 

There is Alagna, where Pope Boniface 
Was dragged with contumely from iris 
throne ; 

Sciarra Colonna, was that day's disgrace 
The Pontiff's only, or in part thine own ? 

There is Ceprano, where a renegade 

Was each Apulian, as great Dantf 
saith. 
When Manfred by his men-at-arms be- 
trayed 
Spurred on to Benevento and to death. 

There is Aquinum, the old Volscian town, 
Where Juvenal was born, whose lurid 
light 
Still hovers o'er his birthplace like tha 
crown 
Of splendor seen o'er cities in the night. 

Doubled the splendor is, that in its streets 
The Angelic Doctor as a school-boy 
played, 
And dreamed perhaps the dreams, that he 
repeats 
In ponderous folios for scholastics made 

And there, uplifted, like a passing cloud 
That pauses on a mountain summif 
high, 

Monte Cassino's convent rears its proud 
And venerable walls against the sky. 



326 



BIRDS OF PASSAGE 



Well 1 remember how on foot I climbed 

The stony pathway leading to its gate ; 
&bove, the convent bells for vespers 
chimed, 
Below, the darkening town grew deso- 
late. 

Well I remember the low arch and dark, 
The courtyard with its well, the terrace 
wide, 
From which, far down, the valley like a 
park, 
Veiled in the evening mists, was dim de- 
scried. 

The day was dying, and with feeble hands 
Caressed the mountain- tops ; the vales 
between 

Darkened ; the river in the meadow-lands 
Sheathed itself as a sword, and was not 



The silence of the place was like a sleep, 
So full of rest it seemed ; each passing 
tread 

Was a reverberation from the deep 
Recesses of the ages that are dead. 

For, more than thirteen centuries ago, 
Benedict fleeing from the gates of Rome, 

A youth disgusted with its vice and woe, 
Sought in these mountain solitudes a 
home. 

He founded here his Convent and his Rule 
Of prayer and work, and counted work 
as prayer ; 
The pen became a clarion, and his school 
Flamed like a beacon in the midnight 
air. 

What though Boccaccio, in his reckless 
way, 

Mocking the lazy brotherhood, deplores 
The illuminated manuscripts, that lay 

Torn and neglected on the dusty floors ? 

Boccaccio was a novelist, a child 
Of fancy and of fiction at the best ! 

This the urbane librarian said, and smiled 
Incredulous, as at some idle jest. 

Upon such themes as these, with one young 
friar 
I sat conversing late into the night, 



Till in its cp.vernous chimney the wood -fire 
Had burnt its heart out like an an 
chorite. 

And then translated, in my convent cell, 
Myself yet not myself, in dreams I lay, 

And, as a monk who hears the matin bell, 
Started from sleep ; — already it was 
day. 

From the high window I beheld the scene 
On which Saint Benedict so oft had 
gazed, — 
The mountains and the valley in the sheen 
Of the bright sun, — and stood as one 
amazed. 

Gray mists were rolling, rising, vanishing ; 

The woodlands glistened with their jew 
elled crowns ; 
Far off the mellow bells began to ring 

For matins in the half-awakened towns. 

The conflict of the Present and the Past, 
The ideal and the actual in our life, 

As on a field of battle held me fast, 

Where this world and the next world 
were at strife. 

For, as the valley from its sleep awoke, 
I saw the iron horses of the steam 

Toss to the morning air their plumes of 
smoke, 
And woke, as one awaketh from a dream. 



AMALF1 

Sweet the memory is to me 

Of a land beyond the sea, 

Where the waves and mountains meef, 

Where amid her mulberry-trees 

Sits Amain* in the heat, 

Bathing ever her white feet 

In the tideless summer seas. 

In the middle of the town, 

From its fountains in the hills, 

Tumbling through the narrow gorge, 

The Canneto rushes down, 

Turns the great wheels of the mills, 

Lifts the hammers of the forge. 

'T is a stairway, not a street, 
That ascends the deep ravine, 



THE SERMON OF ST. FRANCIS 



3*? 



Where the torrent leaps between 


Paestuni with its ruins lies, 


Rocky walls that almost meet. 


And its roses all in bloom 


Toiling up from stair to stair 


Seem to tinge the fatal skies 


Peasant girls their burdens bear ; 


Of that lonely land of doom. 


Sunburnt daughters of the soil, 




Stately figures tall and straight, 


On his terrace, high in air, 


What inexorable fate 


Nothing doth the good monk care 


Dooms them to this life of toil ? 


For such worldly themes as these. 




From the garden just below 


Lord of vineyards and of lands, 


Little puffs of perfume blow, 


Far above the convent stands. 


And a sound is in his ears 


On its terraced walk aloof 


Of the murmur of the bees 


Leans a monk with folded hands. 


In the shining chestnut trees ; 


Placid, satisfied, serene, 


Nothing else he heeds or hears. 


Looking down upon the scene 


All the landscape seems to swoon 


Over wall and red-tiled roof ; 


In the happy afternoon ; 


Wondering unto what good end 


Slowly o'er his senses creep 


All this toil and traffic tend, 


The encroaching waves of sleep, 


And why all men cannot be 


And he sinks as sank the town, 


Free from care and free from pain, 


Unresisting, fathoms down, 


And the sordid love of gain, 


Into caverns cool and deep ! 


And as indolent as he. 






Walled about with drifts of snow, 


Where are now the freighted barks 


Hearing the fierce north-wind blow, 


From the marts of east and west ? 


Seeing all the landscape white 


Where the knights in iron sarks 


And the river cased in ice, 


Journeying to the Holy Land, 


Comes this memory of delight. 


Glove of steel upon the hand, 


Comes this vision unto me 


Cross of crimson on the breast ? 


Of a long-lost Paradise 


Where the pomp of camp and court ? 


In the land beyond the sea. 


Where the pilgrims with their prayers ? 




Where the merchants with their wares, 




And their gallant brigantines 




Sailing safely into port 


THE SERMON OF ST. FRANCIS 


Chased by corsair Algerines ? 






Up soared the lark into the air, 


Vanished like a fleet of cloud, 


A shaft of song, a winged prayer, 


Like a passing trumpet-blast, 


As if a soul released from pain 


Are those splendors of the past, 


Were flying back to heaven again. 


And the commerce and the crowd ! 




Fathoms deep beneath the seas 


St. Francis heard : it was to him 


Lie the ancient wharves and quays, 


An emblem of the Seraphim ; 


Swallowed by the engulfing waves ; 


The upward motion of the fire, 


Silent streets and vacant halls, 


The light, the heat, the heart's desire. 


Ruined roofs and towers and walls ; 




Hidden from all mortal eyes 


Around Assisi's convent gate 


Deep the sunken city lies : 


The birds, God's poor who cannot wait, 


Even cities have their graves ! 


From moor and mere and darksome 




wood 


This is an enchanted land ! 


Come flocking for their dole of food. 


Round the headlands far away 




Sweeps the blue Salernian bay 


" brother birds," St. Francis said, 


With its sickle of white sand : 


" Ye come to me and ask for bread, 


Further still and furthermost 


But not with bread alone to-day 


On the dim discovered coast 


Shall ye be fed and sent away. 



323 



BIRDS OF PASSAGE 



" Ye shall be fed, ye happy birds, 

With nianna of celestial words ; 

Not mine, though mine they seem to be, 

Not mine, though they be spoken through me. 

M Oh, doubly are ye bound to praise 
The great Creator in your lays ; 
He giveth you your plumes of down, 
Tour crimson hoods, your cloaks of brown. 

" He giveth you your wings to fly 
And breathe a purer air on high, 
And careth for you everywhere, 
Who for yourselves so little care ! " 

With flutter of swift wings and songs 
Together rose the feathered throngs, 
And singing scattered far apart ; 
Deep peace was in St. Francis' heart. 

He knew not if the brotherhood 
His homily had understood ; 
He only knew that to one ear 
The meaning of his words was clear. 



BEL1SARIUS 

I am poor and old and blind ; 
The sun burns me, and the wind 

Blows through the city gate, 
And covers me with dust 
From the wheels of the august 

Justinian the Great. 

It was for him I chased 

The Persians o'er wild and waste, 

As General of the East ; 
Night after night I lay 
In their camps of yesterday ; 

Their forage was my feast, 

For him, with sails of red, 
And torches at mast-head, 

Piloting the great fleet, 
I swept the Afric coasts 
And scattered the Vandal hosts, 

Like dust in a windy street. 

For him I won again 

The Ausonian realm and reign, 

Rome and Parthenope ; 
And all the land was mine 
From the summits of Apennine 

To the shores of either sea. 



For him, in my feeble age, 
I dared the battle's rage, 

To save Byzantium's state, 
When the tents of Zabergan 
Like snow-drifts overran 

The road, to the Golden Gate. 

And for this, for this, behold ! 
Infirm and blind and old, 

With gray, uncovered head, 
Beneath the very arch 
Of my triumphal march, 

I stand and beg my bread I 

Methinks I still can hear, 
Sounding distinct and near, 

The Vandal monarch's cry, 
As, captive and disgraced, 
With majestic step he paced,—- 

"All, all is Vanity!" 

Ah ! vainest of all things 
Is the gratitude of kings ; 

The plaudits of the crowd 
Are but the clatter of feet 
At midnight in the street, 

Hollow and restless and load. 

But the bitterest disgrace 
Is to see forever the face 
Of the Monk of Ephesus ! 
The unconquerable will 
This, too, can bear ; — I still 
Am Belisarius I 



SONGO RIVER 

Songo River is a winding stream which connects Lah 
Sebago with Long Lake in Cumberland County, Maina 
Among the early literary plans of Mr. Longfellow wat 
one for a prose tale, the scene of which was to be laid 
near Lake Sebago. This poem was written September 
18, 1875, after a visit to the river in the summer the*, 
closing. 

Nowhere such a devious stream, 

Save in fancy or in dream, 

Winding slow through bush and 

brake, 
Links together lake and lake. 

Walled with woods or sandy shelf, 
Ever doubling on itself 
Flows the stream, so still and skw 
That it hardly seems to flow. 



KERAMOS 



32Q 



Never errant knight of old, 
Lost in woodland or on wold, 
Such a winding path pursued 
Through the sylvan solitude. 

Never school-boy, in his quest 
After hazel-nut or nest, 
Through the forest in and out 
Wandered loitering thus about. 

In the mirror of its tide 
Tangled thickets on each side 
Hang inverted, and between 
Floating cloud or sky serene. 

Swift or swallow on the wing 
Seems the only living thing, 
Or the loon, that laughs and flies 
Down to those reflected skies. 

Silent stream ! thy Indian tame 
Unfamiliar is to fame ; 



For thou hidest here alone, 
Well content to be unknown. 

But thy tranquil waters teach 
Wisdom deep as human speech, 
Moving without haste or noise 
In unbroken equipoise. 

Though thou turnest no busy mill, 
And art ever calm and still, 
Even thy silence seems to say 
To the traveller on his way : — 

" Traveller, hurrying from the heat 
Of the city, stay thy feet ! 
Rest awhile, nor longer waste 
Life with inconsiderate haste ! 

" Be not like a stream that brawls 
Loud with shallow waterfalls, 
But in quiet self-control 
Link together soul and soul." 



KERAMOS 



Turn, turn, my wheel! Turn round and 

round 
Without a pause, without a sound : 

So spins the flying world away ! 
This clay, well mixed with marl and sand, 
Follows the motion of my hand ; 
For some must follow, and some command, 

Though all are made of clay I 

Thus sang the Potter at his task 

Beneath the blossoming hawthorn-tree, 

While o'er his features, like a mask, 

The quilted sunshine and leaf-shade 

Moved, as the boughs above him swayed, 

And clothed him, till he seemed to be 

A. figure woven in tapestry, 

So sumptuously was he arrayed 

In that magnificent attire 

Of sable tissue flaked with fire. 

Like a magician he appeared, 

A conjurer without book or beard ; 

And while he plied his magic art — 

For it was magical to me — 

I stood in silence and apart, 

And wondered more and more to see 

That shapeless, lifeless mass of clay 

Rise up to meet the master's hand, 

And now contract and now expand, 

And even his slightest touch obey ; 



While ever in a thoughtful mood 
He sang his ditty, and at times 
Whistled a tune between the rhymes, 
As a melodious interlude. 

Turn, turn, my wheel ! A 11 things must change 
To something new, to something sirange ; 

Nothing that is can pause or stay ; 
The moon will wax, the moon will wane, 
The mist and cloud will turn to rain t 
The rain to mist and cloud again, 

To-morrow be to-day. 

Thus still the Potter sang, and still, 
By some unconscious act of will, 
The melody and even the words 
Were intermingled with my thought, 
As bits of colored thread are caught 
And woven into nests of birds. 
And thus to regions far remote, 
Beyond the ocean's vast expanse, 
This wizard in the motley coat 
Transported me on wings of song, 
And by the northern shores of France 
Bore me with restless speed alongo 

What land is this that seems to be 

A mingling of the land and sea ? 

This land of sluices, dikes, and dunes ? 



33° 



k£ramos 



This water-net, that tessellates 

The landscape ? this unending maze 

9f gardens, through whose latticed gates 

The imprisoned pinks and tulips gaze ; 

Where in long summer afternoons 

The sunshine, softened by the haze, 

Comes streaming down as through a screen ; 

Where over fields and pastures green 

The painted ships float high in air, 

And over all and everywhere 

The sails of windmills sink and soar 

Like wings of sea-gulls on the shore ? 

What land is this ? Yon pretty town 
Is Delft, with all its wares displayed ; 
The pride, the market-place, the crown 
And centre of the Potter's trade. 
See ! every house and room is bright 
With glimmers of reflected light 
From plates that on the dresser shine ; 
Flagons to foam with Flemish beer, 
Or sparkle with the Rhenish wine, 
And pilgrim flasks with fleurs-de-lis, 
And ships upon a rolling sea, 
And tankards pewter topped, and queer 
With comic mask and musketeer ! 
Each hospitable chimney smiles 
A welcome from its painted tiles ; 
The parlor walls, the chamber floors, 
The stairways and the corridors, 
The borders of the garden walks, 
Are beautiful with fadeless flowers, 
That never droop in winds or showers, 
And never wither on their stalks. 

Turn, turn, my wheel ! All life- is brief; 
What now is bud ivill soon be leaf, 

What now is leaf will soon decay ; 
The wind blows east, the wind blows west ; 
The blue eggs in the robin's nest 
Will soon have wings and beak and breast, 

And flutter and fly away. 

Now southward through the air I glide, 
The song my only pursuivant, 
And see across the landscape wide 
The blue Charente, upon whose tide 
The belfries and the spires of Saintes 
Ripple and rock from side to side, 
As, when an earthquake rends its walls, 
A crumbling city reels and falls. 

Who is it in the suburbs here, 
This Potter, working with such cheer, 
In this mean house, this mean attire, 
His u^anlv features bronzed with fire s 



I Whose figulines and rustic wares 
Scarce find him bread from day to day f 
This madman, as the people say, 
Who breaks his tables and his chairs 
To feed his furnace fires, nor cares 
Who goes unfed if they are fed, 
Nor who may live if they are dead ? 
This alchemist with hollow cheeks 
And sunken, searching eyes, who seeks* 
By mingled earths and ores combined 
With potency of fire, to find 
Some new enamel, hard and bright, 
His dream, his passion, his delight ? 

O Palissy ! within thy breast 
Burned the hot fever of unrest ; 
Thine was the prophet's vision, thin© 
The exultation, the divine 
Insanity of noble minds, 
That never falters nor abates, 
But labors and endures and waits, 
Till all that it foresees it finds, 
Or what it cannot find creates I 

Turn, turn, my wheel ! This earthen ja? 
A touch can make, a touch can mar; 

And shall it to the Potter say, 
What makest thou ? Thou hast no hand f 
As men who think to understand 
A world by their Creator planned, 
Who wiser is than they. 



Still guided by the dreamy song, 

As in a trance I float along 

Above the Pyrenean chain, 

Above the fields and farms of Spain, 

Above the bright Majorcan isle 

That lends its softened name to art, — 

A spot, a dot upon the chart, 

Whose little towns, red-roofed with tile 

Are ruby-lustred with the light 

Of blazing furnaces by night, 

And crowned by day with wreaths of smbkt 

Then eastward, wafted in my flight 

On my enchanter's magic cloak, 

I sail across the Tyrrhene Sea 

Into the land of Italy, 

And o'er the windy Apennines, 

Mantled and musical with pines. 

The palaces, the princely halls, 
The doors of houses and the walls 
Of churches and of belfry towers, 
Cloister and castle, street and mart, 
Are garlanded and gay with flowers 
That blossom in the fields of art. 






KERAMOS 



33* 



Here Gubbio's workshops gleam and glow 
With brilliant, iridescent dyes, 
The dazzling whiteness of the snow, 
The cobalt blue of summer skies ; 
And vase and scutcheon, cup and plate, 
In perfect finish emulate 
Faenza, Florence, Pesaro. 

Forth from Urbino's gate there came 

A youth with the angelic name 

Of Raphael, in form and face 

Himself angelic, and divine 

In arts of color and design. 

From him Francesco Xanto caught 

Something of his transcendent grace, 

And into fictile fabrics wrought 

Suggestions of the master's thought. 

Nor less Maestro Giorgio shines 

With madre-perl and golden lines 

Of arabesques, and interweaves 

His birds and fruits and flowers and leaves 

About some landscape, shaded brown, 

With olive tints 011 rock and town. 

Behold this cup within whose bowl, 
Upon a ground of deepest blue 
With yellow-lustred stars o'erlaid, 
Colors of every tint and hue 
Mingle in one harmonious whole ! 
With large blue eyes and steadfast gaze, 
Her yellow hair in net and braid, 
Necklace and ear-rings all ablaze 
With golden lustre o'er the glaze, 
A woman's portrait ; on the scroll, 
Cana, the Beautiful ! A name 
Forgotten save for such brief fame 
As this memorial can bestow, — 
A gift some lover long ago 
Gave with his heart to this fair dame. 

A nobler title to renown 
Is thine, O pleasant Tuscan town, 
Seated beside the Arno's stream ; 
For Luca della Robbia there 
Created forms so wondrous fair, 
They made thy sovereignty supreme. 
These choristers with lips of stone, 
Whose music is not heard, but seen, 
Still chant, as from their organ-screen, 
Their Maker's praise ; nor these alone, 
But the more fragile forms of clay, 
Hardly less beautiful than they, 
These saints and angels that adorn 
The walls of hospitals, and tell 
The story of good deeds so well 



That poverty seems less forlorn, 
And life more like a holiday. 

Here in this old neglected church, 
That long eludes the traveller's search, 
Lies the dead bishop on his tomb ; 
Earth upon earth he slumbering lies, 
Life-like and death-like in the gloom ; 
Garlands of fruit and flowers in bloon* 
And foliage deck his resting-place ; 
A shadow in the sightless eyes, 
A pallor on the patient face, 
Made perfect by the furnace heat ; 
All earthly passions and desires 
Burnt out by purgatorial fires ; 
Seeming to say, " Our years are fleet, 
And to the weary death is sweet." 

But the most wonderful of all 

The ornaments on tomb or wall 

That grace the fair Ausonian shores 

Are those the faithful earth restores, 

Near some Apulian town concealed, 

In vineyard or in harvest field, — 

Vases and urns and bas-reliefs, 

Memorials of forgotten griefs, 

Or records of heroic deeds 

Of demigods and mighty chiefs : 

Figures that almost move and speak, 

And, buried amid mould and weeds, 

Still in their attitudes attest 

The presence of the graceful Greek, — 

Achilles in his armor dressed, 

Alcides with the Cretan bull, 

And Aphrodite with her boy, 

Or lovely Helena of Troy, 

Still living and still beautiful. 

Turn, turn, my wheel ! *Tis nature's plan 
The child should grow into the man, 

The man grow wrinkled, old, and gray / 
In youth the heart exults and sings, 
The pulses leap, the feet have wings ; 
In age the cricket chirps, and brings 

The harvest-home of day. 

And now the winds that southward blow 9 
And cool the hot Sicilian isle, 
Bear me away. I see below 
The long line of the Libyan Nile, 
Flooding and feeding the parched lands 
With annual ebb and overflow, 
A fallen palm whose branches lie 
Beneath the Abyssinian sky, 
Whose roots are in Egyptian sands. 



332 



KERAMOS 



On either bank huge water-wheels, 
Belted with jars and dripping weeds, 
Send forth their melancholy moans, 
As if, in their gray mantles hid, 
Dead anchorites of the Thebaid 
Knelt on the shore and told their beads, 
Beating their breasts with loud appeals 
And penitential tears and groans. 

This city, walled and thickly set 
With glittering mosque and minaret, 
Is Cairo, in whose gay bazaars 
The dreaming traveller first inhales 
The perfume of Arabian gales, 
And sees the fabulous earthen jars, 
Huge as were those wherein the maid 
Morgiana found the Forty Thieves 
Concealed in midnight ambuscade ; 
And seeing, more than half believes 
The fascinating tales that run 
Through all the Thousand Nights and One, 
Told by the fair Scheherezade. 

More strange and wonderful than these 

Are the Egyptian deities, 

Ammon, and Emeth, and the grand 

Osiris, holding in his hand 

The lotus ; Isis, crowned and veiled ; 

The sacred Ibis, and the Sphinx ; 

Bracelets with blue enamelled links ; 

The Scarabee in emerald mailed, 

Or spreading wide his funeral wings ; 

Lamps that perchance their night-watch 

kept 
O'er Cleopatra while she slept, — 
All plundered from the tombs of kings. 

Turn, turn, my wheel ! The human race, 
Of every tongue, of every place, 

Caucasian, Coptic, or Malay, 
All that inhabit this great earth, 
Whatever be their rank or worth, 
Are kindred and allied by birth, 

A nd made of the same clay. 

O'er desert sands, o'er gulf and bay, 
O'er Ganges and o'er Himalay, 
Bird-like I fly, and flying sing, 
To flowery kingdoms of Cathay, 
And bird-like poise on balanced wing 
Above the town of King-te-tching, 
A burning town, or seeming so, — 
Three thousand furnaces that glow 
Incessantly, and fill the air 
With smoke uprising, gyre on gyre, 



And painted by the lurid glare, 
Of jets and flashes of red fire. 

As leaves that in the autumn fall, 
Spotted and veined with various hues, 
Are swept along the avenues, 
And lie in heaps by hedge and wall, 
So from this grove of chimneys whirled 
To all the markets of the world, 
These porcelain leaves are wafted on, 
Light j'ellow leaves with spots and stains 
Of violet and of crimson dye, 
Or tender azure of a sky 
Just washed by gentle April rains, 
And beautiful with celadon. 

Nor less the coarser household wares, 
The willow pattern, that we knew 
In childhood, with its bridge of blue 
Leading to unknown thoroughfares J 
The solitary man who stares 
At the white river flowing through 
Its arches, the fantastic trees 
And wild perspective of the view ; 
And intermingled among these 
The tiles that in our nurseries 
Filled us with wonder and delight, 
Or haunted us in dreams at night. 

And yonder by Nankin, behold ! 
The Tower of Porcelain, strange and old 
Uplifting to the astonished skies 
Its ninefold painted balconies, 
With balustrades of twining leaves, 
And roofs of tile, beneath whose eaves 
Hang porcelain bells that all the time 
Ring with a soft, melodious chime ; 
While the whole fabric is ablaze 
With varied tints, all fused in one 
Great mass of color, like a maze 
Of flowers illumined by the sun. 

Turn, turn, my wheel ! What is begvn 
A t daybreak must at dark be done, 

To-morrow will be another day ; 
To-morrow the hot furnace flame 
Will search the heart and try theframe^ 
And stamp with honor or with shame 

These vessels made of clay. 

Cradled and rocked in Eastern seas, 
The islands of the Japanese 
Beneath me lie ; o'er lake and plain 
The stork, the heron, and the crane 
Through the clear realms of azure drift, 






THE HERONS OF ELMWOOD 



333 



And on the hillside I can see 

The villages of Imari, 

Whose thronged and flaming workshops 

lift 
Their twisted columns of smoke on high, 
Cloud cloisters that in ruins lie, 
With sunshine streaming through each rift, 
And broken arches of blue sky. 

All the bright flowers that fill the land, 

Ripple of waves on rock or sand, 

The snow on Fusiyama's cone, 

The midnight heaven so thickly sown 

With constellations of bright stars, 

The leaves that rustle, the reeds that make 

A whisper by each stream and lake, 

The saffron dawn, the sunset red, 

Are painted on these lovely jars ; 

Again the skylark sings, again 

The stork, the heron, and the crane 

Float through the azure overhead, 

The counterfeit and counterpart 

Of Nature reproduced in Art. 

Art is the child of Nature ; yes, 
Her darling child, in whom we trace 
The features of the mother's face, 
Her aspect and her attitude ; 
All her majestic loveliness 
Chastened and softened and subdued 
Into a more attractive grace, 
And with a human sense imbued. 



He is the greatest artist, then, 

Whether of pencil or of pen, 

Who follows Nature. JSever man, 

As artist or as artisan, 

Pursuing his own fantasies, 

Can touch the human heart, or please, 

Or satisfy our nobler needs, 

As he who sets his willing feet 

In Nature's footprints, light and fleet, 

And follows fearless where she leads. 

Thus mused I on that morn in May, 
Wrapped in my visions like the Seer, 
Whose eyes behold not what is near, 
But only what is far away, 
When, suddenly sounding peal on peal, 
The church - bell from the neighboring 

town 
Proclaimed the welcome hour of noon. 
The Potter heard, and stopped his wheel, 
His apron on the grass threw down, 
Whistled his quiet little tune, 
Not overloud nor overlong, 
And ended thus his simple song : 

Stop, stop, my wheel ! Too soon, too soon 
The noon will be the afternoon, 

Too soon to-day be yesterday ; 
Behind us in our path we cast 
The broken potsherds of the past, 
And all are ground to dust at last, 

And trodden into clay I 



BIRDS OF PASSAGE 

FLIGHT THE FIFTH 



THE HERONS OF ELMWOOD 

Warm and still is the summer night, 
As here by the river's brink I wander ; 

White overhead are the stars, and white 
The glimmering lamps on the hillside 
yonder. 

Silent are all the sounds of day ; 

Nothing I hear but the chirp of crickets, 
And the cry of the herons winging their way 

O'er the poet's house in the Elmwood 
thickets. 



Call to him, herons, as slowly you pass 
To 3 r our roosts in the haunts of the exhed 
thrushes, 
Sing him the song of the green morass, 
And the tides that water the reeds and 
rushes. 

Sing him the mystical Song of the Hera, 
And the secret that baffles our utmost 
seeking ; 
For only a sound of lament we dis- 
cern, 
And cannot interpret the words you ar* 
speaking. 



334 



BIRDS OF PASSAGE 



Sing of the air, and the wild delight 

Of wings that uplift and winds that up- 
hold you, 
The joy of freedom, the rapture of flight 
Through the drift of the floating mists 
that infold you ; 

Of the landscape lying so far below, 

With its towns and rivers and desert 
places ; 
And the splendor of light above, and the 
glow 
Of the limitless, blue, ethereal spaces. 

Ask him if songs of the Troubadours, 
Or of Minnesingers in old black-letter, 

Sound in his ears more sweet than yours, 
And if yours are not sweeter and wilder 
and better. 

Sing to him, say to him, here at his gate, 
Where the boughs of the stately elms are 
meeting, 
Some one hath lingered to meditate, 

And send him unseen this friendly greet- 
ing ; 

That many another hath done the same, 
Though not by a sound was the silence 
broken ; 
The surest pledge of a deathless name 
Is the silent homage of thoughts un- 
spoken. 



A DUTCH PICTURE 

Simon Danz has come home again, 

From cruising about with his buccaneers ; 

He has singed the beard of the King of 
Spain, 

And carried away the Dean of Jaen 
And sold him in Algiers. 

In his house by the Maese, with its roof of 
tiles, 

And weathercocks flying aloft in air, 
There are silver tankards of antique styles, 
Plunder of convent and castle, and piles 

Of carpets rich and rare. 

In his tulip-garden there by the town, 
Overlooking the sluggish stream, 



With his Moorish cap and dressing-gown, 
The old sea-captain, hale and brown, 
Walks in a waking dream. 

A smile in his gray mustachio lurks 

Whenever he thinks of the King of Spain, 
And the listed tulips look like Turks, 
And the silent gardener as he works 
Is changed to the Dean of Jaen. 

The windmills on the outermost 

Verge of the landscape in the haze, 
To him are towers on the Spanish coast, 
With whiskered sentinels at their post, 
Though this is the river Maese. 

But when the winter rains begin, 

He sits and smokes by the blazing brands, 

And old seafaring men come in, 

Goat-bearded, gray, and with double chin, 
And rings upon their hands. 

They sit there in the shadow and shine 
Of the flickering fire of the winter night J 

Figures in color and design 

Like those by Rembrandt of the Rhine, 
Half darkness and half light. 

And they talk of ventures lost or won, 
And their talk is ever and ever tha 
same, 
While they drink the red wine of Tarragon, 
From the cellars of some Spanish Don, 
Or convent set on flame. 

Restless at times with heavy strides 

He paces his parlor to and fro ; 
He is like a ship that at anchor rides, 
And swings with the rising and fallipg 
tides, 
And tugs at her anchor-tow. 









Voices mysterious far and near, 

Sound of the wind and sound of the sea. 
Are calling and whispering in his ear, 
" Simon Danz ! Why stayest thou here ? 

Come forth and follow me ! " 

So he thinks he shall take to the sea again 
For one more cruise with his buccaneers t 
To singe the beard of the King of Spain, 
And capture another Dean of Jaen 
And sell him in Algiers. 



CASTLES IN SPAIN 



335 



CASTLES IN SPAIN 

How much of my young heart, O Spain, 
Went out to thee in days of yore ! 

What dreams romantic filled my brain, 

And summoned back to life again 

The Paladins of Charlemagne, 
The Cid Campeador ! 

And shapes more shadowy than these, 

In the dim twilight half revealed ; 
Phoenician galleys on the seas, 
The Roman camps like hives of bees, 
The Goth uplifting from his knees 
Pelayo on his shield. 

It was these memories perchance, 

From annals of remotest eld, 
That lent the colors of romance 
To every trivial circumstance, 
And changed the form and countenance 

Of all that I beheld. 

Old towns, whose history lies hid 
In monkish chronicle or rhyme, — 

Burgos, the birthplace of the Cid, 

Zamora and Valladolid, 

Toledo, built and walled amid 
The wars of Wamba's time ; 

The long, straight line of the highway, 
The distant town that seems so near, 
The peasants in the fields, that stay 
Their toil to cross themselves and pray, 
When from the belfry at midday 
The Angelus they hear ; 

White crosses in the mountain pass, 

Mules gay with tassels, the loud din 
Of muleteers, the tethered ass 
That crops the dusty wayside grass, 
And cavaliers with spurs of brass 
Alighting at the inn ; 

White hamlets hidden in fields of wheat, 

White cities slumbering by the sea, 
White sunshine flooding square and street, 
Dark mountain ranges, at whose feet 
The river beds are dry with heat, — 
All was a dream to me. 

Yet something sombre and severe 

O'er the enchanted landscape reigned ; 
A terror in the atmosphere 



As if King Philip listened near, 
Or Torquemada, the austere, 
His ghostly sway maintained. 

The softer Andalusian skies 

Dispelled the sadness and the gloom \ 
There Cadiz by the seaside lies, 
And Seville's orange-orchards rise, 
Making the land a paradise 

Of beauty and of bloom. 

There Cordova is hidden among 

The palm, the olive, and the vine ; 
Gem of the South, by poets sung, 
And in whose mosque Almanzor hung 
As lamps the bells that once had rung 
At Compostella's shrine. 

But over all the rest supreme, 
The star of stars, the cynosure, 

The artist's and the poet's theme, 

The young man's vision, the old man's 
dream, — 

Granada by its winding stream, 
The city of the Moor ! 

And there the Al ham bra still recalls 

Aladdin's palace of delight : 
Allah il Allah ! through its halls 
Whispers the fountain as it falls, 
The Darro darts beneath its walls, 

The hills with snow are white. 

Ah yes, the hills are white with snow, 
And cold with blasts that bite and 
freeze ; 

But in the happy vale below 

The orange and pomegranate grow, 

And wafts of air toss to and fro 
The blossoming almond trees. 

The Yega cleft by the Xenil, 

The fascination and allure 
Of the sweet landscape chains the will , 
The traveller lingers on the hill, 
His parted lips are breathing still 

The last sigh of the Moor. 

How like a ruin overgrown 

With flowers that hide the rents of 
time, 
Stands now the Past that I have known : 
Castles in Spain, not built of stone 
But of white summer clouds, and blown 

Into this little mist of rhvme 1 



336 



BIRDS OF PASSAGE 



VITTORIA COLONNA 

\ittoria Colonna, on the death of her husband, the 
Marchese di Pescara, letired to her castle at Ischia 
(Inarime^, and there wrote the Ode upon his death 
which gained her the title of Divine. 

Once more, once more, Inarime', 
I see thy purple halls ! — once more 

I hear the billows of the bay- 
Wash the white pebbles on thy shore. 

High o'er the sea-surge and the sands, 
Like a great galleon wrecked and cast 

Ashore by storms, thy castle stands, 
A mouldering landmark of the Past. 

Upon its terrace-walk I see 
A phantom gliding to and fro ; 

It is Colonna, — it is she 

Who lived and loved so long ago. 

Pescara's beautiful young wife. 
The type of perfect womanhood, 

Whose life was love, the life of life, 

That time and change and death with- 
stood. 

For death, that breaks the marriage band 

In others, only closer pressed 
The wedding-ring upon her hand 

And closer locked and barred her breast. 

She knew the life-long martyrdom, 
The weariness, the endless pain 

Of waiting for some one to come 
Who nevermore would come again. 

The shadows of the chestnut trees, 
The odor of the orange blooms, 

The song of birds, and, more than these, 
The silence of deserted rooms ; 

The respiration of the sea, 

The soft caresses of the air, 
All things in nature seemed to be 

But ministers of her despair ; 

Till the o'erburdened heart, so long 
Imprisoned in itself, found vent 

And voice in one impassioned song 
Of inconsolable lament. 

Then as the sun, though hidden from sight, 
Transmutes to gold the leaden mist. 



Her life was interfused with light, 

From realms that, though unseen, exist, 

Inarime' ! Inarimd ! 

Thy castle on the crags above 
In dust shall crumble and decay, 

But not the memory of her love. 



THE REVENGE OF RAIN -IN 
THE-FACE 

In that desolate land and lone, 
Where the Big Horn and Yellowstone 

Roar down their mountain path, 
By their fires the Sioux Chiefs 
Muttered their woes and griefs 

And the menace of their wrath. 

" Revenge ! " cried Rain-in-the-Face, 
" Revenge upon all the race 

Of the White Chief with yellow haisr * " 
And the mountains dark and high 
From their crags reechoed the cry 

Of his anger and despair. 

In the meadow, spreading wide 
By woodland and river-side 

The Indian village stood ; 
All was silent as a dream, 
Save the rushing of the stream 

And the blue-jay in the wood. 

In his war paint and his beads, 
Like a bison among the reeds, 
In ambush the Sitting Bull 
Lay with three thousand braves 
Crouched in the clefts and caves, 
Savage, unmerciful ! 

Into the fatal snare 

The White Chief with yellow hair 

And his three hundred men 
Dashed headlong, sword in hand % 
But of that gallant band 

Not one returned again. 

The sudden darkness of death 
Overwhelmed them like the breath 

And smoke of a furnace fire : 
By the river's bank, and between 
The rocks of the ravine, 

They lay in their bloody attira. 



A BALLAD OF THE FRENCH FLEET 



33> 



But the foemen fled in the night, 
And Rain-in-the-Face, in his flight, 

Uplifted high in air 
As a ghastly trophy, bore 
The brave heart, that beat no more, 

Of the White Chief with yellow hair. 

Whose was the right and the wrong ? 
Sing it, O funeral song, 

With a voice that is full of tears, 
And say that our broken faith 
Wrought all this ruin and scathe, 

In the Year of a Hundred Years. 



TO THE RIVER YVETTE 

O lovely river of Yvette ! 

O darling river ! like a bride, 
Some dimpled, bashful, fair Lisette, 

Thou goest to wed the Orge's tide. 

Maincourt, and lordly Dampierre, 
See and salute thee on thy way, 

And, with a blessing and a prayer, 
Ring the sweet bells of St. Forget. 

The valley of Chevreuse in vain 

Would hold thee in its fond embrace ; 

Thou glides t from its arms again 
And hurriest on with swifter pace. 

Thou wilt not stay ; with restless feet, 
Pursuing still thine onward flight, 

Thou goest as one in haste to meet 
Her sole desire, her heart's delight. 

O lovely river of Yvette ! 

O darling stream ! on balanced wings 
The wood-birds sang the chansonnette 

That here a wandering poet sings. 



THE EMPEROR'S GLOVE 



" Combien faudrait-il de peaux d'Espagne pour faire 
un gant de cette grandeur ? " A play upon the words 
gout, a glove, and Gand, the French for Ghent. 



On St. Bavon's tower, commanding 

Half of Flanders, his domain, 
Charles the Emperor on«e was standing, 
While beneath him on the landing 
Stood Duke Alva and his train. 



Like a print in books of fables, 

Or a model made for show, 
With its pointed roofs and gables, 
Dormer windows, scrolls and labels, 

Lay the city far below. 

Through its squares and streets and alleys 

Poured the populace of Ghent ; 
As a routed army rallies, 
Or as rivers run through valleys, 
Hurrying to their homes they went. 

" Nest of Lutheran misbelievers ! " 

Cried Duke Alva as he gazed ; 
" Haunt of traitors and deceivers, 
Stronghold of insurgent weavers, 
Let it to the ground be razed ! " 

On the Emperor's cap the feather 

Nods, as laughing he replies ; 
" How many skins of Spanish leather, 
Think you, would, if stitched together, 
Make a glove of such a size ? " 



A BALLAD OF THE FRENCH 
FLEET 

OCTOBER, 1746 

Mr. Twomas Prince loquitur 

Written at the instance of the Rev. E. E. Hale, when 
efforts were making to save from destruction the Old 
South Meeting House in Boston. Mr. Hale sent Mr. 
Longfellow a passage out of Hutchinson's history, aud 
referred him to Prince's Thanksgiving sermon, given at 
the Old South in 1746. 

A fleet with flags arrayed 

Sailed from the port of Brest, 
And the Admiral's ship displayed 

The signal : " Steer southwest." 
For this Admiral D'Anville 

Had sworn by cross and crown 
To ravage with fire and steel 

Our helpless Boston Town. 

There were rumors in the street, 

In the houses there was fear 
Of the coming of the fleet, 

And the danger hovering near. 
And while from mouth to mouth 

Spread the tidings of dismay, 
I stood in the Old South, 

Saying humbly : " Let us pray 1 



138 BIRDS OF 


PASSAGE 


66 Lord ! we would not advise ; 


Such was Kyrat's wondrous speed, 


But if iu thy Providence 


Never yet could any steed 


A tempest should arise 


Reach the dust-cloud in his course. 


To drive the French Fleet hence, 


More than maiden, more than wife, 


And scatter it far and wide, 


More than gold and next to life 


Or sink it in the sea, 


Roushan the Robber loved his hors® 


We should be satisfied, 




And thine the glory be." 


In the land that lies beyond 




Erzeroum and Trebizond, 


This was the prayer I made, 


Garden-girt his fortress stood ; 


For my soul was all on flame, 


Plundered khan, or caravan 


And even as I prayed 


Journeying north from Koordistan, 


The answering tempest came ; 


Gave him wealth and wine and food 


It came with a mighty power, 




Shaking the windows and walls, 


Seven hundred and fourscore 


And tolling the bell in the tower, 


Men at arms his livery wore, 


As it tolls at funerals. 


Did his bidding night and day ; 




Now, through regions all unknown, 


The lightning suddenly 


He was wandering, lost, alone, 


Unsheathed its flaming sword, 


Seeking without guide his way. 


And I cried : " Stand still, and see 




The salvation of the Lord ! " 


Suddenly the pathway ends, 


The heavens were black with cloud, 


Sheer the precipice descends, 


The sea was white with hail, 


Loud the torrent roars unseen ; 


And ever more fierce and loud 


Thirty feet from side to side 


Blew the October gale. 


Yawns the chasm ; on air must ride 




He who crosses this ravine. 


The fleet it overtook, 




And the broad sails in the van 


Following close in his pursuit, 


Like the tents of Cushan shook, 


At the precipice's foot 


Or the curtains of Midian. 


Reyhan the Arab of Orfah 


Down on the reeling decks 


Halted with his hundred men, 


Crashed the o'erwhelming seas ; 


Shouting upward from the glen, 


Ah, never were there wrecks 


" La Illah ilia Allah ! " 


So pitiful as these ! 






Gently Roushan Beg caressed 


Like a potter's vessel broke 


Kyrat's forehead, neck, and breast 


The great ships of the line ; 


Kissed him upon both his eyes. 


They were carried away as a smoke, 


Sang to him in his wild way, 


Or sank like lead in the brine. 


As upon the topmost spray 


Lord ! before thy path 


Sings a bird before it flies. 


They vanished and ceased to be, 




w hen thou didst walk in wrath 


" my Kyrat, my steed, 


With thine horses through the sea ! 


Round and slender as a reed, 




Carry me this peril through ! 




Satin housings shall be thine, 




Shoes of gold, Kyrat mine, 


fHE LEAP OF ROUSHAN BEG 


thou soul of Kurroglou ! 


Mounted on Kyrat strong and fleet, 


" Soft thy skin as silken skein, 


His chestnut steed with four white feet, 


Soft as woman's hair thy mane, 


Roushan Beg, called Kurroglou, 


Tender are thine eyes and true I 


Son of the road and bandit chief, 


All thy hoofs like ivory shine, 


Seeking refuge and relief, 


Polished bright ; life of mine, 


Up the mountain pathway flew. 


Leap, and rescue Kurroglou I " 



THE THREE KINGS 



339 



Kyrat, then, the strong and fleet, 
Drew together his four white feet, 

Paused a moment on the verge, 
Measured with his eye the space, 
And into the air's embrace 

Leaped as leaps the ocean surge. 

As the ocean surge o'er sand 
Bears a swimmer safe to land, 

Kyrat safe his rider bore ; 
Rattling down the deep abyss 
Fragments of the precipice 

Rolled like pebbles on a shore. 

Rousban's tasselled cap of red 
Trembled not upon his head, 

Careless sat he and upright ; 
Neither hand nor bridle shook, 
Nor his head he turned to look, 

As he galloped out of sight. 

Flash of harness in the air, 
Seen a moment like the glare 

Of a sword drawn from its sheath ; 
Thus the phantom horseman passed, 
And the shadow that he cast 

Leaped the cataract underneath. 

Reyhan the Arab held his breath 
While this vision of life and death 

Passed above him. " Allahu ! " 
Cried he. " In all Koordistan 
Lives there not so brave a man 

Aa this Robber Kurroglou ! " 



HAROUN AL RASCHID 

One day, Haroun Al Raschid read 
A book wherein the poet said : — 

" Where are the kings, and where the rest 
Of those who once the world possessed ? 

"They 're gone with all their pomp and show, 
They 're gone the way that thou shalt go. 

" O thou who choosest for thy share 
The world, and what the world calls fair, 

" Take all that it can give or lend, 
But know that death is at the end ". ; * 

Haroun Al Raschid bowed his head : 
Tears fell upon the page he read. 



KING TRISANKU 

Viswamitra the Magician, 
By his spells and incantations, 

Up to Indra's realms elysian 

Raised Trisanku, king of nations. 

Indra and the gods offended 

Hurled him downward, and descending 
In the air he hung suspended, 

With these equal powers contending. 

Thus by aspirations lifted, 

By misgivings downward driven, 

Human hearts are tossed and drifted 
Midway between earth and heaven. 



A WRAITH IN THE MIST 

" Sir, I should build me a fortification, if I came i 
live here." — Boswell's Johnson. 

On the green little isle of Inchkenneth, 
Who is it that walks by the shore, 

So gay with his Highland blue bonnet, 
So brave with his targe and claymore ? 

His form is the form of a giant, 

But his face wears an aspect of pain ; 

Can this be the Laird of Inchkenneth ? 
Can this be Sir Allan McLean ? 

Ah, no ! It is only the Rambler, 
The Idler, who lives in Bolt Court, 

And who says, were he Laird of Inchkenneth, 
He would wall himself round with a fort. 



THE THREE KINGS 

Three Kings came riding from far away, 

Melchior and Gaspar and Baltasar ; 
Three Wise Men out of the East were they 
And they travelled by night and they slept 
by day, 
For their guide was a beautiful, wonder- 
ful star. 

The star was so beautiful, large, and clear, 

That all the other stars of the sky 
Became a white mist in the atmosphere, 
And by this they knew that the coming waa 
near 
Of the Prince foretold in the prophecy. 



34° 



BIRDS OF PASSAGE 



Three caskets they bore on their saddle- 
bows, 
Three caskets of gold with golden keys ; 
Their robes were of crimson silk with rows 
Of bells and pomegranates and furbelows, 
Their turbans like blossoming almond- 
trees. 

And so the Three Kings rode into the West, 
Through the dusk of night, over hill and 
dell, 
And sometimes they nodded with beard on 

breast, 
And sometimes talked, as they paused to 
rest, 
With the people they met at some way- 
side well. 

" Of the child that is born," said Baltasar, 
"Good people, I pray you, tell us the 
news ; 
For we in the East have seen his star, 
And have ridden fast, and have ridden far, 
To find and worship the King of the 
Jews." 

And the people answered, " You ask in vain ; 
We know of no king but Herod the 
Great ! " 
They thought the Wise Men were men in- 
sane, 
As they spurred their horses across the 
plain, 
Like riders in haste, and who cannot 
wait. 

And when they came to Jerusalem, 

Herod the Great, who had heard this 
thing, 
Sent for the Wise Men and questioned 

them ; 
And said, " Go down unto Bethlehem, 
And bring me tidings of this new king." 

So they rode away ; and the star stood still, 
The only one in the gray of morn ; 

STes, it stopped, — it stood still of its own 
free will, 

Right over Bethlehem on the hill, 

The city of David, where Christ was born. 

A.nd the Three Kings rode through the gate 
and the guard, 
Through the silent street, till their horses 
turned 



. 



And neighed as they entered the great inn- 
yard ; 

But the windows were closed, and the 
doors were barred, 
And only a light in the stable burned. 

And cradled there in the scented hay, 
In the air made sweet by the breath of 
kine, 
The little child in the manger lay, 
The child, that would be king one day 
Of a kingdom not human but divine. 

His mother Mary of Nazareth 

Sat watching beside his place of rest, 
Watching the even f ow of his breath, 
For the joy of life and the terror of death 
Were mingled together in her breast. 

They laid their offerings at his feet : 

The gold was their tribute to a King, 
The frankincense, with its odor sweet, 
Was for the Priest, the Paraclete, 
The myrrh for the body's burying. 

And the mother wondered and bowed hei 
head, 
And sat as still as a statue of stone ; 
Her heart was troubled yet comforted, 
Remembering what the Angel had said ^ 
Of an endless reign and of David's 
throne. 



Then the Kings rode out of the city gate, 
With a clatter of hoofs in proud array ; 
But they wont not back to Herod the Great, 
For they knew his malice and feared his 
hate, 

And returned to their homes by another 
way. 



SONG 

Stay, stay at home, my heart, and rest ) 
Home-keeping hearts are happiest, 
For those that wander they know not where 
Are full of trouble and full of care ; 
To stay at home is best. 

Weary and homesick and distressed, 
They wander east, they wander west, 
And are baffled and beaten and blown about 
By the winds of the wilderness of doubt '■ 
To stay at home is best, 



DELIA 



34' 



Then stay at home, my heart, and rest ; 
The bird is safest in its nest ; 
O'er all that flutter their wings and fly 
A hawk is hovering in the sky ; 
To stay at home is best. 



THE WHITE CZAR 

The White Czar is Peter the Great. Batyushka, 
Father dear, and Gosudar, Sovereign, are titles the 
Russian people are fond of giving to the Czar in their 
popular songs. 

Dost thou see on the rampart's height 
That wreath of mist, in the light 
Of the midnight moon ? Oh, hist ! 
It is not a wreath of mist ; 
It is the Czar, the White Czar, 
Batyushka ! Gosudar ! 

He has heard, among the dead, 
The artillery roll o'erhead ; 
The drums and the tramp of feet 
Of his soldiery in the street ; 
He is awake ! the White Czar, 
Batyushka ! Gosudar ! 

He has heard in the grave the cries 
Of his people : " Awake ! arise ! " 
He has rent the gold brocade 
Whereof his shroud was made ; 
He is risen ! the White Czar, 
Batyushka ! Gosudar ! 

From the Volga and the Don 
He has led his armies on, 
Over river and morass, 
Over desert and mountain pass ; 
The Czar, the Orthodox Czar 5 
Batyushka ! Gosudar i 



He looks from the mountain-chain 
Toward the seas, that cleave in twain 
The continents ; his hand 
Points southward o'er the land 
Of Roumili ! O Czar, 

Batyushka ! Gosudar ! 

And the words break from his lips 1 
I am the builder of ships, 
And my ships shall sail these seas 
To the Pillars of Hercules ! 
I say it ; the White Czar, 
Batyushka ! Gosudar ! 

The Bosphorus shall be free ; 
It shall make room for me ; 
And the gates of its water-streets 
Be unbarred before my fleets. 
I say it ; the White Czar, 
Batyushka ! Gosudar ! 

And the Christian shall no more 
Be crushed, as heretofore, 
Beneath thine iron rule, 

Sultan of Istamboul ! 

1 swear it ! I the Czar, 

Batyushka ! Gosudar I " 



DELIA 

Sweet as the tender fragrance that sur 

vives, 
When martyred flowers breathe out theii 

little lives, 
Sweet as a song that once consoled our pain, 
But never will be sung to us again, 
Is thy remembrance. Now the hour oi 

rest 
Hath come to thee. Sleep, darling ; it is 

best. 



ULTIMA THULE 



DEDICATION 

TO G. W. G. 

With favoring 1 winds, o'er sunlit seas, 
We sailed for the Hesperides, 
The land where golden apples grow; 
But that, ah ! that was long ago. 

How far since then the ocean streams 
Have swept us from that land of dreams, 
That land of fiction and of truth, 
The lost Atlantis of our youth ! 

Whither, ah, whither? Are not these 
The tempest-haunted Orcades, 
Where sea-gulls scream, and breakers roar, 
And wreck and sea-weed line the shore ? 

Ultima Thule ! Utmost Isle ! 
Here in thy harbors for a while 
We lower our sails ; a while we rest 
From the unending, endless quest. 



POEMS 

BAYARD TAYLOR 

Dead he lay among his books ! 
The peace of God was in his looks. 

As the statues in the gloom 
Watch o'er Maximilian's tomb, 

So those volumes from their shelves 
Watched him, silent as themselves. 

Ah ! his hand will nevermore 
Turn their storied pages o'er ; 

Nevermore his lips repeat 
Songs of theirs, however sweet. 

Let the lifeless body rest ! 
He is gone, who was its guest ; 

Gone, as travellers haste to leave 
An inn, nor tarry until eve. 

Traveller ! in what realms afar, 
In what planet, in what star, 



In what vast, aerial space, 
Shines the light upon thy face ? 

In what gardens of delight 
Rest thy weary feet to-night ? 

Poet ! thou, whose latest verse 
Was a garland on thy hearse; 

Thou hast sung, with organ tone, 
In Deukalion's life, thine own; 

On the ruins of the Past 
Blooms the perfect flower at last. 

Friend ! but yesterday the bells 
Rang for thee their loud farewells; 

And to-day they toll for thee, 
Lying dead beyond the sea; 

Lying dead among thy books, 
The peace of God in all thy looks ! 



THE CHAMBER OVER THE GATE 

Is it so far from thee 
Thou canst no longer see, 
In the Chamber over the Gate, 
That old man desolate, 
Weeping and wailing sore 
For his son, who is no more * 
O Absalom, my son ! 

Is it so long ago 
That cry of human woe 
From the walled city came. 
Calling on his dear name, 
That it has died away 
In the distance of to-day? 
O Absalom, my son ! 

There is no far or near, 
There is neither there nor here, 
There is neither soon nor late, 
In that Chamber over the Gate, 
Nor any long ago 
To that cry of human woe, 
O Absalom, my son ! 



FROM MY ARM-CHAIR 



343 



From the ages that are past 
The voice sounds like a blast, 
Over seas that wreck and drown, 
Over tumult of traffic and town; 
And from ages yet to be 
Come the echoes back to me, 
O Absalom, my son ! 

Somewhere at every hour 
The watchman on the tower 
Looks forth, and sees the fleet 
Approach of the hurrying feet 
Of messengers, that bear 
The tidings of despair. 
O Absalom, my son ! 

He goes forth from the door, 
Who shall return no more. 
With him our joy departs; 
The light goes out in our hearts; 
In the Chamber over the Gate 
We sit disconsolate. 
O Absalom, my son ! 

That 't is a common grief 
Bringeth but slight relief; 
Ours is the bitterest loss, 
Ours is the heaviest cross; 
And forever the cry will be 
; Would God I had died for thee, 
O Absalom, my son ! " 



FROM MY ARM-CHAIR 

TO THE CHILDREN OF CAMBRIDGE 

WHO PRESENTED TO ME, ON MY SEVENTY- 
SECOND BIRTHDAY, FEBRUARY 2J, 1879, THIS 
CHAIR MADE FROM THE WOOD OF THE VIL- 
LAGE BLACKSMITH'S CHESTNUT TREE. 

Am I a king, that I should call my own 

This splendid ebon throne ? 
Or by what reason, or what right divine, 

Can I proclaim it mine? 

Only, perhaps, by right divine of song 

It may to me belong; 
Only because the spreading chestnut tree 

Of old was sung by me. 

Well I remember it in all its prime, 

When in the summer-time 
The affluent foliage of its branches made 

A cavern of ccol shade. 



There, by the blacksmith's forge, beside 
the street, 

Its blossoms white and sweet 
Enticed the bees, until it seemed alive, 

And murmured like a hive. 

And when the winds of autumn, with 2 
shout, 
Tossed its great arms about, 
The shining chestnuts, bursting from the 
sheath, 
Dropped to the ground beneath. 

And now some fragments of its branches 
bare 
Shaped as a stately chair, 
Have by my hearthstone found a home at 
last, 
And whisper of the past. 

The Danish king could not in all his pride 

Repel the ocean tide, 
But, seated in this chair, I can in rhyme 

Roll back the tide of Time. 

I see again, as one in vision sees, 

The blossoms and the bees, 
And Hear the children's voices shout and 
call, 

And the brown chestnuts fall. 

I see the smithy with its fires aglow, 

I hear the bellows blow, 
And the shrill hammers on the anvil beat 

The iron white with heat ! 

And thus, dear children, have ye made for 
me 
This day a jubilee, 
And to my more than threescore years and 
ten 
Brought back my youth again. 

The heart hath its own memory, like the 
mind, 
And in it are enshrined 
The precious keepsakes, into which is 
wrought 
The giver's loving thought. 

Only your love and your remembrance could. 

Give life to this dead wood, 
And make these branches, leafless now sc 
long, 

Blossom again in song. 



344 



ULTIMA THULE 



JUGURTHA 

How cold are thy baths, Apollo I 

Cried the African monarch, the splendid, 

As down to his death in the hollow 

Dark dungeons of Rome he descended, 
Uncrowned, unthroned, unattended ; 

How cold are thy baths, Apollo ! 

How cold are thy baths, Apollo ! 

Cried the Poet, unknown, unbefriended, 
Is the vision, that lured him to follow, 
With the mist and the darkness blended, 
And the dream of his life was ended ; 

How cold are thy baths, Apollo ! 



THE IRON PEN 

Written June 20, 1879. The pen was made of a bit of 
Iron from the prison of Bonnivard at Chillon ; the 
handle of wood from the Frigate Constitution, and 
bound with a circlet of gold, inset with three precious 
stones from Siberia, Ceylon, and Maine. It r/as a gift 
from Miss Helen Hamlin, of Bangor, Maine. 

I thought this Pen would arise 
From the casket where it lies — 
Of itself would arise and write 
My thanks and my surprise. 

When you gave it me under the pines, 
I dreamed these gems from the mines 

Of Siberia, Ceylon, and Maine 
Would glimmer as thoughts in the lines ; 

That this iron link from the chain 
Of Bonnivard might retain 

Some verse of the Poet who sang 
Of the prisoner and his pain ; 

That this wood from the frigate's mast 
Might write me a rhyme at last, 
As it used to write on the sky 
The song of the sea and the blast. 

But motionless as I wait, 
Like a Bishop lying in state 

Lies the Pen, with its mitre of gold, 
And its jewels inviolate. 

Then must I speak, and say 

That the light of that summer day 

In the garden under the pines 
Shall not fade and pass away. 



I shall see you standing there, 
Caressed by the fragrant air, 

With the shadow on your face, 
And the sunshine on your hair. 

I shall hear the sweet low tone 
Of a voice before unknown, 

Saying, " This is from me to you — 
From me, and to you alone." 

And in words not idle and vain 

I shall answer and thank you again 

For the gift, and the grace of the gift s 
O beautiful Helen of Maine ! 

And forever this gift will be 
As a blessing from you to me, 

As a drop of the dew of your youth 
On the leaves of an aged tree. 



ROBERT BURNS 

I see amid the fields of Ajt 

A ploughman, who, in foul and fair, 

Sings at his task 
So clear, we know not if it is 
The laverock's song we hear, or his, 

Nor care to ask. 

For him the ploughing of those fields 
A more ethereal harvest yields 

Than sheaves of grain ; 
Songs flush with purple bloom the rye s 
The plover's call, the curlew's cry, 

Sing in his brain. 

Touched by his hand, the wayside weed 
Becomes a flower ; the lowliest reed 

Beside the stream 
Is clothed with beauty ; gorse and grass il 
And heather, where his footsteps pass, 

The brighter seem. 

j 
He sings of love, whose flame illumes 
The darkness of lone cottage rooms ; 

He feels the force, 
The treacherous undertow and stress 
Of wayward passions, and no less 

The keen remorse. 

Ac moments, wrestling with his fate, 
His voice is harsh, but not with hate ; 

The brush- wood, hung 
Above the tavern door, lets fall 



ELEGIAC 



345 



Its bitter leaf, its drop of gall 


He says : " From this evil fame, 


Upon his tongue. 


From this life of sorrow and shame, 




I will lift thee and make thee mine ; 


But still the music of his song 


Thou hast been Queen Candace, 


Rises o'er all, elate and strong ; 


And Helen of Troy, and shalt be 


Its master-chords 


The Intelligence Divine ! " 


Are Manhood, Freedom, Brotherhood, 




Its discords but an interlude 


Oh, sweet as the breath of morn, 


Between the words. 


To the fallen and forlorn 




Are whispered words of praise ; 


And then to die so young and leave 


For the famished heart believes 


Unfinished what he might achieve ! 


The falsehood that tempts and deceives. 


Yet better sure 


And the promise that betrays. 


Is this, than wandering up and down, 




An old man in a country town, 


So she follows from land to land 


Infirm and poor. 


The wizard's beckoning hand, 




As a leaf is blown by the gust, 


For now he haunts his native land 


Till she vanishes into night. 


As an immortal youth ; his hand 


O reader, stoop down and write 


Guides every plough ; 


With thy finger in the dust. 


He sits beside each ingle-nook, 




His voice is in each rushing brook, 


O town in the midst of the seas, 


Each rustling bough. 


With thy rafts of cedar trees, 




Thy merchandise and thy ships, 


His presence haunts this room to-night, 


Thou, too, art become as naught, 


A form of mingled mist and light 


A phantom, a shadow, a thought, 


From that far coast. 


A name upon men's lips. 


Welcome beneath this roof of mine ! 




Welcome ! this vacant chair is thine, 




Dear guest and ghost ! 






ELEGIAC 


HELEN OF TYRE 


Dark is the morning with mist ; in the 




narrow mouth of the harbor 


What phantom is this that appears 


Motionless lies the sea, under its curtain 


Through the purple mists of the years, 


of cloud ; 


Itself but a mist like these ? 


Dreamily glimmer the sails of ships on the 


A woman of cloud and of lire ; 


distant horizon, 


It is she ; it is Helen of Tyre, 


Like to the towers of a town, built on 


The town in the midst of the seas. 


the verge of the sea. 


Tyre ! in thy crowded streets 


Slowly and stately and still, they sail forth 


The phantom appears and retreats, 


into the ocean ; 


And the Israelites that sell 


With them sail my thoughts over the 


Thy lilies and lions of brass, 


limitless deep, 


Look up as they see her pass, 


Farther and farther away, borne on by un- 


And murmur " Jezebel ! " 


satisfied longings, 




Unto Hesperian isles, unto Ausonian 


Then another phantom is seen 


shores. 


At her side, in a gray gabardine, 




With beard that floats to his waist ; 


Now they have vanished away, have dis- 


It is Simon Magus, the Seer ; 


appeared in the ocean ; 


He speaks, and she pauses to hear 


Sunk are the towers of the town into the 


The words he utters in haste. 


depths of the sea ! 



346 



ULTIMA THULE 



All have vanished but those that, moored 
in the neighboring roadstead, 
Sailless at anchor ride, looming so large 
in the mist. 

Vanished, too, are the thoughts, the dim, 
unsatisfied longings; 
Sunk are the turrets of cloud into the 
ocean of dreams; 
While in a haven of rest my heart is riding 
at anchor, 
Held by the chains of love, held by the 
anchors of trust ! 



OLD ST. DAVID'S AT RADNOR 

What an image of peace and rest 

Is this little church among its graves ! 
All is so quiet; the troubled breast, 
The wounded spirit, the heart oppressed, 
Here may find the repose it craves. 

See, how the ivy climbs and expands 

Over this humble hermitage, 
And seems to caress with its little hands 
The rough, gray stones, as a child that 
stands 

Caressing the wrinkled cheeks of age ! 

You cross the threshold; and dim and 
small 
Is the space that selves for the Shep- 
herd's Fold; 
The narrow aisle, the bare, white wall, 
The pews, and the pulpit quaint and tall, 
Whisper and say: " Alas ! we are old." 

Herbert's chapel at Bemerton 

Hardly more spacious is than this; 
But poet and pastor, blent in one, 
Clothed with a splendor, as of the sun, 
That lowly and holy edifice. 

It is not the wall of stone without 

That makes the building small or great, 
But the soul's light shining round about, 
And the faith that overcometh doubt, 
And the love that stronger is than hate. 

Were I a pilgrim in search of peace, 
Were I a pastor of Holy Church, 



More than a Bishop's diocese 
Should I prize this place of rest and re- 
lease 
From further longing and further search 



Here would I stay, and let the world 
With its distant thunder roar 



and 



Storms do not rend the sail that is furled; 
Nor like a dead leaf, tossed and whirled 
In an eddy of wind, is the anchored soul. 



FOLK-SONGS 

THE SIFTING OF PETER 

In St. Luke's Gospel we are told 
How Peter in the days of old 

Was sifted; 
And now, though ages intervene, 
Sin is the same, while time and scene 

Are shifted. 

Satan desires us, great and small, 
As wheat to sift us, and we all 

Are tempted; 
Not one, however rich or great, 
Is by his station or estate 

Exempted. 

No house so safely guarded is 
But he, by some device of his, 

Can enter; 
No heart hath armor so complete 
But he can pierce with arrows fleet 

Its centre. 

For all at last the cock will crow, 
Who hear the warning voice, but go 

Unheeding, 
Till thrice and more they have denied 
The Man of Sorrows, crucified 

And bleeding. 

One look of that pale, suffering face 
Will make us feel the deep disgrace 

Of weakness; 
W T e shall be sifted till the strength 
Of self-conceit be changed at length 

To meekness. 



i 



THE TIDE RISES, THE TIDE FALLS 



347 



Wounds of the soul, though healed, will 

ache ; 
The reddening scars remain, and make 

Confession ; 
Lost innocence returns no more ; 
We are not what we were before 

Transgression. 

But noble souls, through dust and heat, 
Rise from disaster and defeat 

The stronger ; 
And conscious still of the divine 
Within them, lie on earth supine 

No longer. 



MAIDEN AND WEATHERCOCK 

MAIDEN. 

Weathercock on the village spire, 
With your golden feathers all on fire, 
Tell me, what can you see from your 
perch 
bove there over the tower of the church ? 



A 



WEATHERCOCK. 



I can see the roofs and the streets below, 
And the people moving to and fro, 
And beyond, without either roof or street, 
The great salt sea, and the fishermen's 
^_ fleet. 

I can see a ship come sailing in 
Beyond the headlands and harbor of Lynn, 
And a young man standing on the deck, 
With a silken kerchief round his neck. 



Now he is pressing it to his lips, 
And now he is kissing his finger-tips, 
And now he is lifting and waving 

hand, 
And blowing the kisses toward the land. 



bis 



MAIDEN. 

Ah, that is the ship from over the sea, 
That is bringing my lover back to me, 
Bringing my lover so fond and true, 
Who does not change with the wind like 
you. 

WEATHERCOCK. 

If I change with all the winds that blow, 
It is only because they made me so, 
And people would think it wondrous strange, 
\i I, a VVeathercock, should not change. 



O pretty Maiden, so fine and fair, 

With your dreamy eyes and your golden 

hair, 
When you and your lover meet to-day 
You will thank me for looking some othei 

way. 



THE WINDMILL 

Behold ! a giant am I ! 

Aloft here in my tower, 

With my granite jaws I devour 

The maize, and the wheat, and the rye, 
And grind them into flour. 

I look down over the farms ; 
In the fields of grain I see 
The harvest that is to be, 

And I fling to the air my arms, 
For I know it is all for me. 

I hear the sound of flails 

Far off, from the threshing-floors 
In barns, with their open doors, 

And the wind, the wind in my sails, 
Louder and louder roars. 

1 stand here in my place, 

With my foot on the rock below, 
And whichever way it may blow, 

I meet it face to face 

As a brave man meets his foe. 

And while we wrestle and strive, 
My master, the miller, stands 
And feeds me with his hands : 

For he knows who makes him thrive, 
Who makes him lord of lands. 

On Sundays I take my rest ; 
Church-going bells begin 
Their low, melodious din ; 

I cross my arms on my breast, 
And all is peace within. 



THE TIDE 



RISES, THE TIDE 
FALLS 



The tide rises, the tide falls, 
The twilight darkens, the curlew calls ; 
Along the sea-sands damp and brown 
The traveller hastens toward the town, 
And the tide rises, the tide falls. 



ULTIMA THULE 



Darkness settles on roofs and walls, 

But the sea, the sea in the darkness calls ; 

The little waves, with their soft, white 

hands, 
Efface the footprints in the sands, 
And the tide rises, the tide falls. 

The morning breaks ; the steeds in their 

stalls 
Stamp and neigh, as the hostler calls ; 
The day returns, but nevermore 
Returns the traveller to the shore, 
And the tide rises, the tide falls. 



SONNETS 

MY CATHEDRAL 

Like two cathedral towers these stately 
pines 
Uplift their fretted summits tipped with 

cones ; 
The arch beneath them is not built with 

stones, 
Not Art but Nature traced these lovely 
lines, 
And carved this graceful arabesque of 
vines ; 
No organ but the wind here sighs and 

moans, 
No sepulchre conceals a martyr's bones, 
No marble bishop on his tomb reclines. 
Enter ! the pavement, carpeted with leaves, 
Gives back a softened echo to thy tread ! 
Listen ! the choir is singing ; all the birds, 
In leafy galleries beneath the eaves, 

Are singing ! listen, ere the sound be 

fled, 
And learn there may be worship without 
words. 



THE BURIAL OF THE POET 

RICHARD HENRY DANA 

If the old churchyard of his native town, 
And in the ancestral tomb beside the 

wall, 
We laid him in the sleep that comes to 

all, 
And left him to his rest and his re- 



The snow was falling, as if Heaven dropped 

down 
White flowers of Paradise to strew his 

pall ; — 
The dead around him seemed to wake 

and call 
His name, as worthy of so white a crown. 
And now the moon is shining on the 

scene, 
And the broad sheet of snow is writter 

o'er 
With shadows cruciform of leafless trees, 
As once the winding-sheet of Saladin 

With chapters of the Koran ; but, ah I 

more 
Mysterious and triumphant signs are 

these. 



NIGHT 

Into the darkness and the hush of night 
Slowly the landscape sinks, and fades 

away, 
And with it fade the phantoms of the day, 
The ghosts of men and things, that haunt 
the light. 
The crowd, the clamor, the pursuit, the 
flight, 
The unprofitable splendor and display, 
The agitations, and the cares that prey 
Upon our hearts, all vanish out of sight. 
The better life begins ; the world no more 
Molests us ; all its records we erase 
From the dull commonplace book of oui 
lives, 
That like a palimpsest is written o'er 

With trivial incidents of time and place, 
And lo ! the ideal, hidden beneath, revives. 



L'ENVOI 
THE POET AND HIS SONGS 

As the birds come in the Spring, 
We know not from where ; 

As the stars come at evening 
From depths of the air ; 

As the rain comes from the cloud, 
And the brook from the ground $ 

As suddenly, low or loud, 
Out of silence a sound ; 



THE POET'S CALENDAR 



349 



As the grape comes to the vine, 
The fruit to the tree ; 

As the wind comes to the pine, 
And the tide to the sea ; 

As come the "white sails of ships 
O'er the ocean's verge ; 

As comes the smile to the lips, 
The foam to the surge ; 

So come to the Poet his songs, 
All hither ward blown 



From the misty realm, that belong/ 
To the vast Unknown. 

His, and not his, are the lays 
He sings ; and their fame 

Is his, and not his ; and the praise 
And the pride of a name. 

For voices pursue him by day, 

And haunt him by night, 
And he listens, and needs must obey, 

When the Angel says, " Write ! " 



IN THE HARBOR 



BECALMED 

Becalmed upon the sea of Thought, 
Still unattained the land it sought, 
My mind, with loosely-hanging sails, 
Lies waiting the auspicious gales. 

On either side, behind, before, 
The ocean stretches like a tloor, — 
A level floor of amethyst, 
Crowned by a golden dome of mist. 

Blow, breath of inspiration, blow ! 
Shake and uplift this golden glow ! 
And fill the canvas of the mind 
With wafts of thy celestial wind. 

Blow, breath of song ! until I feel 
The straining sail, the lifting keel, 
The life of the awakening sea, 
Its motion and its mystery ! 



THE POET'S CALENDAR 

JANUARY 

Janus am I ; oldest of potentates ; 

Forward I look, and backward, and be- 
low 
I count, as god of avenues and gates, 

The years that through my portals come 
and go. 



I block the roads, and drift the fields with 
snow ; 
I chase the wild-fowl from the frozen 
fen ; 
My frosts congeal the rivers in their flow, 
My fires light up the hearths and hearts 
of men. 



FEBRUARY 

I am lustration ; and the sea is mine ! 
I wash the sands and headlands with my 
tide ; 
My brow is crowned with branches of the 
pine ; 
Before my chariot - wheels the fishes 
glide. 
By me all things unclean are purified, 
By me the souls of men washed white 
again ; 
E'en the unlovely tombs of those who died 
Without a dirge, I cleanse from every 
stain. 

MARCH 

I Martins am ! Once first, and now the 
third ! 
To lead the Year was my appointed 
place ; 
A mortal dispossessed me by a word, 

And set there Janus with the double 
face. 



35© 



IN THE HARBOR 



Hence I make war on all the human race ; 

I shake the cities with my hurricanes ; 
I flood the rivers and their banks efface, 

And drown the farms and hamlets with 
my rains. 

APRIL 

I open wide the portals of the Spring 

To welcome the procession of the flowers, 
With their gay banners, and the birds that 
sing 
Their song of songs from their aerial 
towers. 
I soften with my sunshine and my showers 
The heart of earth ; with thoughts of 
love I glide 
Into the hearts of men ; and with the 
Hours 
Upon the Bull with wreathed horns I 
ride. 

MAY 

Hark ! The sea-faring wild-fowl loud pro- 
claim 
My coming, and the swarming of the 
bees. 
These are my heralds, and behold ! my 
name 
Is written in blossoms on the hawthorn- 
trees. 
I tell the mariner when to sail the seas ; 
I waft o'er all the land from far away 
The breath and bloom of the Hesperides, 
My birthplace. I am Maia. I am May. 



JUNE 

Mine is the Month of Roses ; yes, and 
mine 
The Month of Marriages ! All pleasant 
sights 
And scents, the fragrance of the blossoming 
vine, 
The foliage of the valleys and the 
heights. 
Mine are the longest days, the loveliest 
nights ; 
The mower's scythe makes music to my 
ear ; 
L am the mother of all dear delights ; 
I am the fairest daughter of the year. 



JULY 

My emblem is the Lion, and I breathe 
The breath of Libyan deserts o'er the 
land ; 
My sickle as a sabre I unsheathe, 

And bent before me the pale harvests 
stand. 
The lakes and rivers shrink at my com- 
mand, 
And there is thirst and fever in the air ; 
The sky is changed to brass, the earth to 
sand ; 
I am the Emperor whose name I bear. 



AUGUST 

The Emperor Octavian, called the August? 

I being his favorite, bestowed his name 
Upon me, and I hold it still in trust, 

In memory of him and of his fame. 
I am the Virgin, and my vestal flame 

Burns less intensely than the Lion's 
rage ; 
Sheaves are my only garlands, and I claim 

The golden Harvests as my heritage. 



SEPTEMBER 

I bear the Scales, where hang in equipoise 
The night and day ; and when unto my 
lips 
I put my trumpet, with its stress and noise 
Fly the white clouds like tattered sails 
of ships ; 
The tree-tops lash the air with sounding 
whips ; 
Southward the clamorous sea-fowl wing 
their flight ; 
The hedges are all red with haws and hips, 
The Hunter's Moon reigns empress of 
the night. 

OCTOBER 

My ornaments are fruits ; my garments 
leaves, 
Woven like cloth of gold, and crimsoa 
dyed ; 
I do not boast the harvesting of sheaves, 
O'er orchards and o'er vineyards I prP 
side. 



VICTOR AND VANQUISHED 



35* 



Though on the frigid Scorpion I ride, 
The dreamy air is full, and overflows 

With tender memories of the summer-tide, 
And mingled voices of the doves and 



NOVEMBER 

The Centaur, Sagittarius, am I, 

Born of Ixion's and the cloud's embrace ; 
With sounding hoofs across the earth I 

fly, 

A steed Thessalian with a human face. 
Sharp winds the arrows are with which I 
chase 
The leaves, half dead already with 
affright ; 
I shroud myself in gloom ; and to the race 
Of mortals bring nor comfort nor de- 
light. 

DECEMBER 

Riding upon the Goat, with snow-white 
hair, 
I come, the last of all. This crown of 
mine 
Is of the holly ; in my hand I bear 

The thyrsus, tipped with fragrant cones 
of pine. 
I celebrate the birth of the Divine, 

\nd the return of the Saturnian reign ; — 
My songs are carols sung at every shrine, 
Proclaiming " Peace on earth, good will 
to men." 



AUTUMN WITHIN 

It is autumn ; not without, 
But within me is the cold. 

Youth and spring are all about ; 
It is I that have grown old. 

Birds are darting through the air, 
Singing, building without rest ; 

Life is stirring everywhere, 
Save within my lonely breast. 

There is silence : the dead leaves 
Fall and rustle and are still ; 

Beats no flail upon tho sheaves, 
Comes no murmur from the mill. 



THE FOUR LAKES OF MADISON 

Four limpid lakes, — four Naiades 
Or sylvan deities are these, 

In flowing robes of azure dressed ; 
Four lovely handmaids, that uphold 
Their shining mirrors, rimmed with gold 

To the fair city in the West. 

By day the coursers of the sun 
Drink of these waters as they run 

Their swift diurnal round on high ; 
By night the constellations glow 
Far down the hollow deeps below, 

And glimmer in another sky. 

Fair lakes, serene and full of light, 
Fair town, arrayed in robes of white, 

How visionary ye appear ! 
All like a floating landscape seems 
In cloud-land or the land of dreams, 

Bathed in a golden atmosphere ! 



VICTOR AND VANQUISHED 

As one who long hath fled with panting 

breath 
Before his foe, bleeding: and near to 

fall, * 

I turn and set my back against the 

wall, 
And look thee in the face, triumphant 

Death. 
I call for aid, and no one answereth ; 

I am alone with thee, who conquerest 

all; 
Yet me thy threatening form doth not. 

appall, 
For thou art but a phantom and a wraith. 
Wounded and weak, sword broken at the 

hilt, 
With armor shattered, and without a 

shield, 
I stand unmoved ; do with me what thou 

wilt ; 
I can resist no more, but will not yield. 
This is no tournament where cowarda 

tilt; 
The vanquished here is victor of the 

field. 



352 



IN THE HARBOR 



MOONLIGHT 

As a pale phantom with a lamp 
Ascends some ruin's haunted stair, 

So glides the moon along the damp 
Mysterious chambers of the air. 

Now hidden in cloud, and now revealed, 
As if this phantom, full of pain, 

Were by the crumbling walls concealed, 
And at the windows seen again. 

Until at last, serene and proud 
In all the splendor of her light, 

She walks the terraces of cloud, 
Supreme as Empress of the Night. 

I look, but recognize no more 

Objects familiar to my view j 
The very pathway to my door 

Is an enchanted avenue. 

All things are changed. One mass of shade, 
The elm-trees drop their curtains down ; 

By palace, park, and colonnade 
I walk as in a foreign town. 

The very ground beneath my feet 

Is clothed with a diviner air ; 
While marble paves the silent street 

And glimmers in the empty square. 

Illusion ! Underneath there lies 
The common life of every day ; 

Only the spirit glorifies 

With its own tints the sober gray. 

In vain we look, in vain uplift 

Our eyes to heaven, if we are blind ; 

We see but what we have the gift 
Of seeing ; what we bring we find. 



THE CHILDREN'S CRUSADE 
[a fragment] 



What is this I read in history, 
Full of marvel, full of mystery, 
Difficult to understand ? 
Is it fiction, is it truth ? 
Children in the flower of vouth, 



Heart in heart, and hand in hand 9 
Ignorant of what helps or harms, 
Without armor, without arms, 
Journeying to the Holy Land ! 

Who shall answer or divine ? 
Never since the world was mad© 
Such a wonderful crusade 
Started forth for Palestine. 
Never while the world shall last 
Will it reproduce the past ; 
Never will it see again 
Such an army, such a band, 
Over mountain, over main, 
Journeying to the Holy Land. 

Like a shower of blossoms blown 
From the parent trees were they ; 
Like a flock of birds that fly 
Through the unfrequented sky, 
Holding nothing as their own, 
Passed they into lands unknown, 
Passed to suffer and to die. 

O the simple, child-like trust ! 
O the faith that could believe 
What the harnessed, iron-mailed 
Knights of Christendom had failed, 
By their prowess, to achieve, 
They, the children, could and must ! 

Little thought the Hermit, preaching 

Holy Wars to knight and baron, 

That the words dropped in his teaching, 

His entreaty, his beseeching, 

Would by children's hands be gleaned, 

And the staff on which he leaned 

Blossom like the rod of Aaron. 

As a summer wind upheaves 

The innumerable leaves 

In the bosom of a wood, — 

Not as separate leaves, but massed 

All together by the blast, — 

So for evil or for good 

His resistless breath upheaved 

All at once the many-leaved, 

Many-thoughted multitude. 

In the tumult of the air 
Rock the boughs with all the nests 
Cradled on their tossing crests ; 
By the fervor of his prayer 
Troubled hearts were everywhere 
Rocked and tossed in human breasts. 









SUNDOWN 



353 



For a century, at least, 
His prophetic voice had ceased ; 
But the air was heated still 
By his lurid words and will, 
As from fires in far-off woods, 
In the autumn of the year, 
An unwonted fever broods 
In the sultry atmosphere. 



In Cologne the bells were ringing, 
In Cologne the nuns were singing 
Hymns and canticles divine ; 
Loud the monks sang in their stalls, 
And the thronging streets were loud 
With the voices of the crowd ; — 
Underneath the city walls 
Silent flowed the river Rhine. 

From the gates, that summer day, 
Clad in robes of hodden gray. 
With the red cross on the breast, 
Azure-eyed and golden-haired, 
Forth the young crusaders fared ; 
While above the band devoted 
Consecrated banners floated, 
Fluttered many a flag and streamer, 
And the cross o'er all the rest ! 
Singing lowly, meekly, slowly, 
** Give us, give us back the holy 
Sepulchre of the Redeemer ! " 
On the vast procession pressed, 
Youths and maidens. . . . 



Ill 

Ah ! what master hand shall paint 
How they journeyed on their way, 
How the days grew long and dreary, 
How their little feet grew weary, 
How their little hearts grew faint ! 

Ever swifter day by day 
Flowed the homeward river ; ever 
More and more its whitening current 
Broke and scattered into spray, 
Till the calmly-flowing river 
Changed into a mountain torrent, 
Rushing from its glacier green 
Down through chasm and black ravine. 

Like a phoenix in its nest, 
Burned the red sun in the West. 



Sinking in an ashen cloud ; 
In the East, above the crest 
Of the sea-like mountain chain, 
Like a phoenix from its shroud, 
Came the red sun back again. 

Now around them, white with snow, 
Closed the mountain peaks. Below, 
Headlong from the precipice 
Down into the dark abyss, 
Plunged the cataract, white with foam | 
And it said, or seemed to say : 
Oh return, while yet you may, 
Foolish children, to your home, 
There the Holy City is ! " 

But the dauntless leader said : 
Faint not, though your bleeding feet 
O'er these slippery paths of sleet 
Move but painfully and slowly ; 
Other feet than yours have bled ; 
Other tears than yours been shed. 
Courage ! lose not heart or hope ; 
On the mountains' southern slope 
Lies Jerusalem the Holy ! " 
As a white rose in its pride, 
By the wind in summer-tide 
Tossed and loosened from the branch, 
Showers its petals o'er the ground, 
From the distant mountain's side, 
Scattering all its snows around, 
With mysterious, muffled sound, 
Loosened, fell the avalanche. 
Voices, echoes far and near, 
Roar of winds and waters blending, 
Mists uprising, clouds impending, 
Filled them with a sense of fear, 
Formless, nameless, never ending. 



SUNDOWN 

The summer sun is sinking low ; 
Only the tree-tops redden and glow : 
Only the weathercock on the spire 
Of the neighboring church is a flame of fire 
All is in shadow below. 

O beautiful, awful summer day, 
What hast thou given, what taken away ? 
Life and death, and love and hate, 
Homes made happy or desolate, 
Hearts made sad or gay ! 



554 



IN THE HARBOR 



On the road of life one mile-stone more ! 
In the book of life one leaf turned o'er ! 
Like a red seal is the setting sun 
On the good and the evil men have done, — 
Naught can to-day restore ! 



CHIMES 

Sweet chimes 1 that in the loneliness of 

night 
Salute the passing hour, and in the dark 
And silent chambers of the household 

mark 
The movements of the myriad orbs of 

light ! 
Through my closed eyelids, by the inner 

sight, 
I see the constellations in the arc 
Of their great circles moving on, and 

hark ! 
I almost hear them singing in their flight. 
Better than sleep it is to lie awake, 
O'er-canopied by the vast starry dome 
Of the immeasurable sky ; to feel 
The slumbering world sink under us, and 

make 
Hardly an eddy, — a mere rush of foam 
On the great sea beneath a sinking keel. 



FOUR BY THE CLOCK 

"Nahant, September 8, 1880, four o'clock in the 
morning." 

Four by the clock ! and yet not day ; 
But the great world rolls and wheels away, 
With its cities on land, and its ships at 

sea, 
Into the dawn that is to be ! 

Only the lamp in the anchored bark 
Sends its glimmer across the dark, 
And the heavy breathing of the sea 
Is the only sound that comes to me. 



AUF WIEDERSEHEN 

IN MEMORY OF J. T. F. 

In April, 1881, Mr. Longfellow notes in his diary : 
** A sorrowful and distracted week. Fields died on Sun- 
day, the 24th. Palfrey died on Tuesday. Two intimate 
friends in one week ! " The poem was written April 
^ 1881. 



Until we meet again ! That is the meaa 

ing 
Of the familiar word's, that men repeat 

At parting in the street. 
Ah yes, till then ! but when death inter- 
vening 
Rends us asunder, with what ceaseless pain 
We wait for the Again ! 

The friends who leave us do not feel the 

sorrow 
Of parting, as we feel it, who must stay 

Lamenting day by day, 
And knowing, when we wake upon the 

morrow, 
We shall not find in its accustomed place 
The one beloved face. 

It were a double grief, if the departed, 
Being released from earth, should still re- 
tain 
A sense of earthly pain ; 
It were a double grief, if the true-hearted, 
W^ho loved us here, should on the farther 
shore 
Remember us no more. 

Believing, in the midst of our afflictions, 
That death is a beginning, not an end, 

We cry to them, and send 
Farewells, that better might be called pre- 
dictions, 
Being fore-shadowings of the future, thrown 

Into the vast Unknown. 






Faith 



overleaps 
son, 



the confines of our rea- 



And if by faith, as in old times was said, 

Women received their dead 
Raised up to life, then only for a season 
Our partings are, nor shall we wait in 
vain 
Until we meet again ! 



ELEGIAC VERSE 

I 

Peradventtjre of old, some bard in Ioniaz* 
Islands, 
Walking alone by the sea, hearing th, 
wash of the waves, 



ELEGIAC VERSE 



355 



Learned the secret from them of the beauti- 
ful verse elegiac, 
Breathing into his song motion and sound 
of the sea. 

For as the wave of the sea, upheaving in 
long undulations, 
Plunges loud on the sands, pauses, and 
turns, and retreats, 
So the Hexameter, rising and singing, with 
cadence sonorous, 
Falls ; and in refluent rhythm back the 
Pentameter Hows. 



Not in his youth alone, but iu age, may the 
heart of the poet 
Bloom into song, as the gorse blossoms 
in autumn and spring. 



Ill 

Not in tenderness wanting, yet rough are 
the rhymes of our poet ; 
Though it be Jacob's voice, Esau's, alas ! 
are the hands. 



IV 

Let us be grateful to writers for what is 
left in the inkstand ; 
When to leave off is an art only attained 
by the few. 



How can the Three be One ? you ask me ; 
I answer by asking, 
Hail and snow and rain, are they not 
three, and yet one ? 



VI 

By the mirage uplifted, the land floats 
vague in the ether, 
Ships and the shadows of ships hang in 
the motionless air ; 
So by the art of the poet our common life 
is uplifted, 
So, transfigured, the world floats in a 
luminous haze. 



VII 



Like a French poem is Life ; being only 
perfect in structure 
When with the masculine rhymes mingled 
the feminine are. 



VIII 

Down from the mountain descends the 
brooklet, rejoicing iu freedom ; 
Little it dreams of the mill hid in the 
valley below ; 
Glad with the joy of existence, the child 
goes singing and laughing, 
Little dreaming what toils lie in the 
future concealed. 



IX 

As the ink from our pen, so flow om, 
thoughts and our feelings 
When we begin to write, however slug 
gish before. 



Like the Kingdom of Heaven, the Fountain 
of Youth is within us ; 
If we seek it elsewhere, old shall we 
grow in the search. 



XI 

If you would hit the mark, you must aim 
a little above it ; 
Every arrow that flies feels the attraction 
of earth. 



XII 

Wisely the Hebrews admit no Present tense 
in their language ; 
While we are speaking the word, it is 
already the Past. 



In the twilight of age all things seem 
strange and phantasmal, 
As between daylight and dark ghost-like 
the landscape appears. 



356 



IN THE HARBOR 



XIV 

Great is the art of beginning, but greater 
the art is of ending; 
Many a poem is marred by a superfluous 
verse. 



THE CITY AND THE SEA 

The panting City cried to the Sea, 
" I am faint with heat, — Oh breathe on 
me ! " 

And the Sea said, " Lo, I breathe ! but my 

breath 
To some will be life, to others death ! " 

As to Prometheus, bringing ease 
In pain, come the Oceanides, 

So to the City, hot with the flame 

Of the pitiless sun, the east wind came. 

It came from the heaving breast of the 

deep, 
Silent as dreams are, and sudden as sleep. 

Life-giving, death-giving, which will it 

be; 
O breath of the merciful, merciless Sea ? 



MEMORIES 

Oft I remember those whom I have known 
In other days, to whom my heart was 

led 
As by a magnet, and who are not dead, 
But absent, and their memories over- 
grown 
With other thoughts and troubles of my 
own, 
As graves with grasses are, and at their 

head 
The stone with moss and lichens so o'er- 

spread, 
Nothing is legible but the name alone. 
4.nd is it so with them ? After long 
years, 



Do they remember me in the same 

way, 
And is the memory pleasant as to me ? 
I fear to ask ; yet wherefore are my 

fears ? 
Pleasures, like flowers, may wither and 

decay, 
And yet the root perennial may be. 



HERMES TRISMEGISTUS 

As Seleucus narrates, Hermes describes the principlea 
that rank as wholes in two myriads of books ; or, as we 
are informed by Mauetho, he perfectly unfolded these 
principles in three myriads six thousand five hundred 
and twenty-five volumes. . . . 

. . . Our ancestors dedicated the inventions of their 
wisdom to this deity, inscribing all their own writings 
with the name of Hermes. — Iamblicus. 

Still through Egypt's desert places 

Flows the lordly Nile, 
From its banks the great stone faces 

Gaze with patient smile. 
Still the pyramids imperious 

Pierce the cloudless skies, 
And the Sphinx stares with mysterious, 

Solemn, stony eyes. 

But where are the old Egyptian 

Demi-gods and kings ? 
Nothing left but an inscription 

Graven on stones and rings. 
Where are Helios and Hephaestus, 

Gods of eldest eld ? 
Where is Hermes Trismegistus, 

Who their secrets held ? 

Where are now the many hundred 

Thousand books he wrote ? 
By the Thaumaturgists plundered, 

Lost in lands remote; 
In oblivion sunk forever, 

As when o'er the land 
Blows a storm-wind, in the river 

Sinks the scattered sand. 

Something unsubstantial, ghostly, 

Seems this Theurgist, 
In deep meditation mostly 

Wrapped, as in a mist. 
Yague, phantasmal, and unreal 

To our thought he seems, 









PRESIDENT GARFIELD 



357 



Walking in a world ideal, 
In a land of dreams. 

Was he one, or many, merging 

Name and fame in one, 
Like a stream, to which, converging, 

Many streamlets run ? 
Till, with gathered power proceeding, 

Ampler sweep it takes, 
Downward the sweet waters leading 

From unnumbered lakes. 

By the Nile I see him wandering, 

Pausing now and then, 
On the mystic union pondering 

Between gods and men; 
Half believing, wholly feeling, 

With supreme delight, 
How the gods, themselves concealing, 

Lift men to their height. 

Or in Thebes, the hundred-gated, 

In the thoroughfare 
Breathing, as if consecrated, 

A diviner air; 
And amid discordant noises, 

In the jostling throng, 
Hearing far, celestial voices 

Of Olympian song. 

Who shall call his dreams fallacious ? 

Who has searched or sought 
All the unexplored and spacious 

Universe of thought ? 
Who, in his own skill confiding, 

Shall with rule and line 
Mark the border-land dividing 

Human and divine ? 

Trismegistus ! three times greatest ! 

How thy name sublime 
Has descended to this latest 

Progeny of time ! 
Happy they whose written pages 

Perish with their lives, 
If amid the crumbling ages 

Still their name survives ! 

Thine, O priest of Egypt, lately 

Found I in the vast, 
Weed-encumbered, sombre, stately, 

Grave-yard of the Past; 



And a presence moved before me 
On that gloomy shore, 

As a waft of wind, that o'er me 
Breathed, and was no more. 



TO THE AVON 

Flow on, sweet river ! like his verse 
Who lies beneath this sculptured hearse £ 
Nor wait beside the churchyard wall 
For him who cannot hear thy call. 

Thy playmate once; I see him now 
A boy with sunshine on his brow, 
And hear in Stratford's quiet street 
The patter of his little feet. 

I see him by thy shallow edge 
Wading knee-deep amid the sedge; 
And lost in thought, as if thy stream 
Were the swift river of a dream. 

He wonders whitherward it flows; 
And fain would follow where it goes, 
To the wide world, that shall erelong 
Be filled with his melodious song. 

Flow on, fair stream ! That dream is o'er: 
He stands upon another shore; 
A vaster river near him flows, 
And still he follows where it goes. 



PRESIDENT GARFIELD 

" E venni dal martirio a questa pace " 

Paradi.so, XV. 148. 

These words the poet heard in Paradise, 
Uttered by one who, bravely dying here 
In the true faith, was living in that 

sphere 
Where the celestial cross of sacrifice 
Spread its protecting arms athwart the 

skies-, 
And set thereon, like jewels crystal 

clear, 
The souls magnanimous, that knew no£ 

fear, 
Flashed their effulgence on his dazzled 

eye* 



358 



IN THE HARBOR 



Ah me ! how dark the discipline of pain, 
Were not the suffering followed by the 

sense 
Of infinite rest and infinite release ! 
This is our consolation; and again 

A great soul cries to us in our suspense, 
" I came from martyrdom unto this 
peace ! " 



MY BOOKS 

Sadly as some old mediaeval knight 

Gazed at the arms he could no longer 

wield, 
The sword two-handed and the shining 

shield 
Suspended in the hall, and full in sight, 
While secret longings for the lost delight 
Of tourney or adventure in the field 
Came over him, and tears but half con- 
cealed 
Trembled and fell upon his beard of 

white, 
So I behold these books upon their shelf, 
My ornaments and arms of other days; 
Not wholly useless, though no longer 

used, 
For they remind me of my othsr self, 
Younger and stronger, and the pleasant 

ways 
In which I walked, now clouded and 

confused. 



MAD RIVER 

IN THE WHITE MOUNTAINS 
TRAVELLER. 

Why dost thou wildly rush and roar, 

Mad River, O Mad River ? 
Wilt thou not pause and cease to pour 
Thy hurrying, headlong waters o'er 
This rocky shelf forever ? 

What secret trouble stirs thy breast ? 

Why all this fret and flurry ? 
Dost thou not know that what is best 
In this too restless world is rest 

From over-work and worry ? 



THE RIVER. 

What wouldst thou in these mountains 
seek, 

O stranger from the city ? 
Is it perhaps some foolish freak 
Of thine, to put the words I speak 

Into a plaintive ditty ? 

TRAVELLER. 

Yes; I would learn of thee thy song, 
With all its flowing numbers, 

And in a voice as fresh and strong 

As thine is, sing it all day long, 
And hear it in my slumbers. 

THE RIVER. 

A brooklet nameless and unknown 

Was I at first, resembling 
A little child, that all alone 
Comes venturing down the stairs of stone, 

Irresolute and trembling. 

Later, by wayward fancies led. 

For the wide world I panted; 
Out of the forest, dark and dread, 
Across the open fields I fled, 

Like one pursued and haunted. 

I tossed my arms, I sang aloud, 

My voice exultant blending 
With thunder from the passing cloud, 
The wind, the forest bent and bowed, 

The rush of rain descending.. 

I heard the distant ocean call, 

Imploring and entreating; 
Drawn onward, o'er this rocky Avail 
I plunged, and the loud waterfall 

Made answer to the greeting. 

And now, beset with many ills, 

A toilsome life I follow; 
Compelled to carry from the hills 
These logs to the impatient mills 

Below there in the hollow. 

Yet something ever cheers and charms 

The rudeness of my labors; 
Daily I water with these arms 
The cattle of a hundred farms, 

And have the birds for neighbors. 



LOSS AND GAIN 



359 



Men call me Mad, and well they may, 

When, full of rage and trouble, 
I burst my banks of sand and clay, 
And sweep their wooden bridge away, 
Like withered reeds or stubble. 

Now go and write thy little rhyme, 
As of thine own creating. 

Thou seest the day is past its prime; 

I can no longer waste my time; 

The mills are tired of waiting. 



POSSIBILITIES 

Where are the Poets, unto whom belong 

The Olympian heights ; whose singing 
shafts were sent 

Straight to the mark, and not from bows 
half bent, 

But with the utmost tension of the 
thong ? 
Where are the stately argosies of song, 

Whose rushing keels made music as they 
went 

Sailing in search of some new conti- 
nent, 

With all sail set, and steady winds and 
strong ? 
Perhaps there lives some dreamy boy, un- 
taught 

In schools, some graduate of the field or 
street, 

Who shall become a master of the art, 
An admiral sailing the high seas of thought, 

Fearless and first, and steering with li is 
fleet 

For lands not yet laid down in any chart. 



DECORATION DAY 

Sleep, comrades, sleep and rest 

On this Field of the Grounded Arms, 

Where foes no more molest, 
Nor sentry's shot alarms ! 

Ye have slept on the ground before, 

And started to your feet 
At the cannon's sudden roar, 

Or the drum's redoubling beat. 



But in this camp of Death 

No sound your slumber breaks; 

Here is no fevered breath, 

No wound that bleeds and aches. 

All is repose and peace, 
Untrampled lies the sod; 

The shouts of battle cease, 
It is the truce of God ! 

Rest, comrades, rest and sleep ! 

The thoughts of men shall be 
As sentinels to keep 

Your rest from danger free. 

Your silent tents of green 

We deck with fragrant flowers; 

Yours has the suffering been, 
The memory shall be ours. 



A FRAGMENT 

Awake ! arise ! the hour is late ! 

Angels are knocking at thy door ! 
They are in haste and cannot wait, 

And once departed come no more. 

Awake ! arise ! the athlete's arm 
Loses its strength by too much rest; 

The fallow land, the untilled farm 
Produces only weeds at best. 



LOSS AND GAIN 

When I compare 
What I have lost with what I have 

gained, 
What I have missed with what attained, 
Little room do I find for pride. 

I am aware 
How many days have been idly spent; 
How like an arrow the good intent 
Has fallen short or been turned aside. 

But who shall dare 
To measure loss and gain in this wise ? 
Defeat may be victory in disguise; 

The lowest ebb is the turn of the tide. 






3 6 ° 



IN THE HARBOR 



INSCRIPTION ON THE SHANK- 
LIN FOUNTAIN 

O traveller, stay thy weary feet; 
Drink of this fountain, pure and sweet; 

It Hows for rich and poor the same. 
Then go thy way, remembering still 
The wayside well beneath the hill, 

The cup of water in his name. 



THE BELLS OF SAN BLAS 

The last poem written by Mr. Longfellow. The last 
verse but one is dated March 12, 1882. The final verse 
was added March 15. Mr. Longfellow died March 24. 
The poem was suggested by an article in Harper's 
Magazine, which the poet had just read. 

What say the Bells of San Bias 
To the ships that southward pass 

From the harbor of Mazatlan ? 
To them it is nothing more 
Than the sound of surf on the shore, — 

Nothing more to master or man. 

But to me, a dreamer of dreams, 
To whom what is and what seems 

Are often one and the same, — 
The Bells of San Bias to me 
Have a strange, wild melody, 

And are something more than a 



For bells are the voice of the church; 
They have tones that touch and search 

The hearts of young and old; 
One sound to all, yet each 
Lends a meaning to their speech, 

And the meaning is manifold. 

They are a voice of the Past, 
Of an age that is fading fast, 

Of a power austere and grand; 
When the flag of Spain unfurled 
Its folds o'er this western world, 

And the Priest was lord of the land. 

The chapel that once looked down 
On the little seaport town 

Has crumbled into the dust; 
And on oaken beams below 
The bells swing to and fro, 

And are green with mould and rust. 



;< Is, then, the old faith dead," 
They say, " and in its stead 

Is some new faith proclaimed, 
That we are forced to remain 
Naked to sun and rain, 

Unsheltered and ashamed ? 

;< Once in our tower aloof 
We rang over wall and roof 

Our warnings and our complaints; 
And round about us there 
The white doves filled the air, 

Like the white souls of the saints. 

; ' The saints ! Ah, have they grown 
Forgetful of their own ? 

Are they asleep, or dead, 
That open to the sky 
Their ruined Missions lie, 

No longer tenanted ? 

" Oh, bring us back once more 
The vanished days of yore, 

When the world with faith was filled ; 
Bring back the fervid zeal, 
The hearts of fire and steel, 

The hands that believe and build. 






Then from our tower again 

We will send over land and main 

Our voices of command, 
Like exiled kings who return 
To their thrones, and the people learn 

That the Priest is lord of the land! 

O Bells of San Bias, in vain 
Ye call back the Past again ! 

The Past is deaf to your prayer; 
Out of the shadows of night 
The world rolls into light ; 

It is daybreak everywhere. 



FRAGMENTS 

October 22, 1838. 

Neglected record of a mind neglected, 
Unto what " lets and stops " art thou sub- 
jected ! 
The day with all its toils and occupations, 
The night with its reflections and sensa- 
tions, 
The future, and the present, and the 

past, — 
All I remember, feel, and hope at last, 






FRAGMENTS 



361 



All shapes of joy and sorrow, as they pass, — 
Find but a dusty image in this glass. 

August 18, 1847. 

faithful, indefatigable tides, 

That evermore upon God's errands go, — 
Now seaward bearing tidings of the 

land, — 
Wow landward bearing tidings of the 

sea, — 
And filling every frith and estuary, 
Each arm of the great sea, each little 

creek, 
Each thread and filament of water-courses, 
Full with your ministration of delight ! 
Under the rafters of this wooden bridge 

1 see you come and go; sometimes in haste 
To reach your journey's end, which being 

done 
With feet unrested ye return again 
And recommence the never-ending task; 
Patient, whatever burdens ye may bear, 
And fretted only by the impeding rocks. 



December 18, 1847. 
Soft through the silent air descend the 

feathery snow-flakes; 
White are the distant hills, white are the 

neighboring fields; 
Only the marshes are brown, and the river 

rolling among them 
Weareth the leaden hue seen in the eyes of 

the blind. 

August 4, 1856. 
A lovely morning, without the glare of the 
sun, the sea in great commotion, chafing 
and foaming. 

So from the bosom of darkness our days 
come roaring and gleaming, 
Chafe and break into foam, sink into 
darkness again. 
But on the shores of Time each leaves some 
trace of its passage, 
Though the succeeding wave washes it 
out from the sand. 



CHRISTUS: A MYSTERY 



Mr. Longfellow's habit of jotting down impulses and 
momentary resolutions in his note-book lets us partly 
into the secret of the magnum opus which dominated 
his life. The possibly vague aspiration of his youth 
" to build some tower of song with lofty parapet " 
clearly took somewhat positive shape at this time. 
There is an entry in his journal, under date of Novem- 
ber 8, 1841, which indicates how intensely and how 
comprehensively the conception of Christus possessed 
him at the outset : — 

" This evening it has come into my mind to under- 
take a long and elaborate poem by the holy name of 



Christ ; the theme of which would be the various as- 
pects of Christendom in the Apostolic, Middle, and 
Modern Ages." 

It was not till 1872 that the work as it now stands 
was published ; and during those thirty-one years, 
which represent almost the whole of Mr. Longfellow's 
productive period, the subject of the trilogy seems 
never to have been long absent from his mind. The 
theme in its majesty was a flame by night and a pillar 
of cloud by day, which led his mind in all its onward 
movement ; and he esteemed the work which he had 
undertaken as the really great work of his life. 



INTROITUS 

The Angel bearing the Prophet Habakkui 
through the air. 

PROPHET. 

Why dost thou bear me aloft, 

O Angel of God, on thy pinions 

O'er realms and dominions ? 

Softly I float as a cloud 

In air, for thy right hand upholds me, 

Thy garment enfolds me ! 

ANGEL. 

Lo ! as I passed on my way 
In the harvest-field I beheld thee, 
When no man compelled thee, 
Bearing with thine own hands 
This food to the famishing reapers, 
A flock without keepers ! 

The fragrant sheaves of the wheat 

Made the air above them sweet; 

Sweeter and more divine 

Was the scent of the scattered grain, 

That the reaper's hand let fall 

To be gathered again 

By the hand of the gleaner ! 

Sweetest, divinest of all, 

Was the humble deed of thine, 

And the meekness of thv demeanor ! 



PROPHET. 

Angel of Light, 

I cannot gainsay thee, 

I can but obey thee ! 

ANGEL. 

Beautiful was it in the Lord's sight, 

To behold his Prophet 

Feeding those that toil, 

The tillers of the soil. 

But why should the reapers eat of it 

And not the Prophet of Zion 

In the den of the lion ? 

The Prophet should feed the Prophet ! 

Therefore I thee have uplifted, 

And bear thee aloft by the hair 

Of thy head, like a cloud that is drifted 

Through the vast unknown of the air ! 

Five days hath the Prophet been lying 

In Babylon, in the den 

Of the lions, death-defying, 

Defying hunger and thirst; 

But the worst 

Is the mockery of men ! 

Alas ! how full of fear 

Is the fate of Prophet and Seer I 

Forevermore, forevermore, 

It shall be as it hath been heretofore ; 

The age in which they live 

Will not forgive 



THE DIVINE TRAGEDY 



363 



The splendor of the everlasting light, 
That makes their foreheads bright, 
Nor the sublime 
Fore-running of their time ! 

PROPHET. 

Oh tell me, for thou knowest, 
Wherefore and by what grace, 
Have I, who am least and lowest, 
Been chosen to this place, 
To this exalted part ? 

ANGEL. 

Because thou art 

The Struggler ; and from thy youth 

Thy humble and patient life 

Hath been a strife 

And battle for the Truth ; 

Nor hast thou paused nor halted, 

Nor ever in thy pride 

Turned from the poor aside, 

But with deed and word and pen 

Hast served thy fellow-men ; 

Therefore art thou exalted ! 

PROPHET. 

By thine arrow's light 

Thou goest onward through the night, 

And by the clear 

Sheen of thy glittering spear ! 

When will our journey end ? 



Lo, it is ended ! 

Yon silver gleam 

Is the Euphrates' stream. 

Let us descend 

Into the city splendid, 

Into the City of Gold ! 

PROPHET. 

Behold ! 

As if the stars had fallen from their places 

Into the firmament below, 

The streets, the gardens, and the vacant 

spaces 
With light are all aglow ; 
And hark ! 
As we draw near, 
What sound is it I hear 
Ascending through the dark ? 

ANGEL. 

The tumultuous noise of the nations, 
Their rejoicings and lamentations, 



The pleadings of their prayer, 
The groans of their despair, 
The cry of their imprecations. 
Their wrath, their love, their hate I 

PROPHET. 

Surely the world doth wait 
The coming of its Redeemer ! 

ANGEL. 

Awake from thy sleep, O dreamer \ 
The hour is near, though late ; 
Awake ! write the vision sublime, 
The vision, that is for a time, 
Though it tarry, wait ; it is nigh ; 
In the end it will speak and not lie. 



PART ONE 

THE DIVINE TRAGEDY 
THE FIRST PASSOVER 

I 
VOX CLAMANTIS 

JOHN THE BAPTIST, 

Repent ! repent ! repent ! 

For the kingdom of God is at hand, 

And all the land 

Full of the knowledge of the Lord shall be 

As the waters cover the sea, 

And encircle the continent ! 

Repent ! repent ! repent ! 

For lo, the hour appointed, 

The hour so long foretold 

By the Prophets of old, 

Of the coming of the Anointed, 

The Messiah, the Paraclete, 

The Desire of the Nations, is nigh ! 

He shall not strive nor cry, 

Nor his voice be heard in the street ; 

Nor the bruised reed shall He break, 

Nor quench the smoking flax ; 

And many of them that sleep 

In the dust of earth shall awake, 

On that great and terrible day, 

And the wicked shall wail and weep, 

And be blown like a smoke away, 

And be melted away like wax. 

Repent ! repent ! repent I 



364 



CHRISTUS: A MYSTERY 



O Priest, and Pharisee, 
Who hath warned you to flee 
From the wrath that is to be ? 
From the coming anguish and ire ? 
The axe is laid at the root 
Of the trees, and every tree 
That bringeth not forth good fruit 
Is hewn down and cast into the fire ! 

Ye Scribes, why come ye hither ? 

In the hour that is uncertain, 

In the day of anguish and trouble, 

He that stretcheth the heavens as a curtain 

And spreadeth them out as a tent, 

Shall blow upon you, and ye shall wither, 

And the whirlwind shall take you away as 

stubble ! 
Repent ! repent ! repent ! 



Who art thou, O man of prayer ! 
In raiment of camel's hair, 
Begirt with leathern thong. 
That here in the wilderness, 
With a cry as of one in distress, 
Preachest unto this throng? 
Art thou the Christ V 

JOHN. 

Priest of Jerusalem, 

In meekness and humbleness, 

I deny not, I confess 

I am not the Christ ! 



What shall we say unto them 
That sent us here ? Reveal 
Thy name, and naught conceal 1 
Art thou Elias ? 

JOHN. 

No! 



Art thou that Prophet, then, 
Of lamentation and woe, 
Who, as a symbol and sign 
Of impending wrath divine 
Upon unbelieving men, 
Shattered the vessel of clay 
In the Valley of Slaughter ? 






1 am not he + .bou namest ! 



Nay. 



Who art thou, and what is the word 
That here thou proclaimest ? 



I am the voice of one 

Crying in the wilderness alone : 

Prepare ye the way of the Lord 

Make his paths straight 

In the land that is desolate I 



If thou be not the Christ, 
Nor yet Elias, nor he 
That, in sign of the things to be. 
Shattered the vessel of clay 
In the Valley of Slaughter, 
Then declare unto us, and say 
By what authority now 
Baptizest thou ? 

JOHN. 

I indeed baptize you with water 

Unto repentance ; but He, 

That cometh after me, 

Is mightier than I and higher j 

The latchet of whose shoes 

I am not worthy to unloose ; 

He shall baptize you with fire, 

And with the Holy Ghost ! 

Whose fan is in his hand ; 

He will purge to the uttermost 

His floor, and garner his wheat, 

But will burn the chaff in the brand 

And fire of unquenchable heat ! 

Repent ! repent ! repent ! 



MOUNT QUARANTANIA 



LUCIFER. 

Not in the lightning's flash, nor in the 

thunder, 
Not in the tempest, nor the cloudy storm, 

Will I array my form ; 
But part invisible these boughs asunder, 
And move and murmur, as the wind up 
heaves 
And whispers in the leaves. 



THE DIVINE TRAGEDY 



365 



Not as a terror and a desolation, 

Not in my natural shape, inspiring fear 

And dread, will I appear ; 
But in soft tones of sweetness and persua- 
sion, 
A sound as of the fall of mountain streams, 

Or voices heard in dreams. 

He sitteth there in silence, worn and wasted 
With famine, and uplifts his hollow eyes 

To the unpitying skies ; 
For forty days and nights lie hath not tasted 
Of food or drink, his parted lips are pale, 

Surely his strength inujt fail. 

Wherefore dost thou in penitential fasting 
Waste and consume the beauty of thy 
youth ? 
Ah, if thou be in truth 
The Son of the Unnamed, the Everlasting, 
Command these stones beneath thy feet to 
be 
Changed into bread for thee ! 

CHRISTUS. 

T is written : Man shall not live by bread 

alone, 
But by each word that from God's mouth 

proceedeth ! 

II 

LUCIFER. 

Too weak, alas ! too weak is the temptation 
For one whose soul to nobler things aspires 

Than sensual desires ! 
Ah, could I, by some sudden aberration, 
Lead and delude to suicidal death 

This Christ of Nazareth ! 

Unto the holy Temple on Moriah, 

With its resplendent domes, and manifold 

Bright pinnacles of gold, 
Where they await thy coming, O Messiah ! 
Lo, I have brought thee ! Let thy glory 
here 

Be manifest and clear. 

lleveal thyself by royal act and gesture 
Descending with the bright triumphant host 

Of all the highermost 
Archangels, and about thee as a vesture 
The shining clouds, and all thy splendors 
show 

Unto the world below 1 



Cast thyself down, it is the hour appointed ; 
And God hath given his angels charge and 
care 

To keep thee and upbear 
Upon their hands his only Son, the Anointed, 
Lest he should dash his foot against a stone 

And die, and be unknown. 



'T is written : Thou shalt not tempt the 
Lord thy God ! 

Ill 

LUCIFER. 

I cannot thus delude him to perdition I 
But one temptation still remains untried, 

The trial of his pride, 
The thirst of power, the fever of ambition ! 
Surely by these a humble peasant's son 

At last may be undone ! 

Above the yawning chasms and deep abysses. 
Across the headlong torrents, I have brought 

Thy footsteps, swift as thought ; 
And from the highest of these precipices, 
The Kingdoms of the world thine eyes be- 
hold, 

Like a great map unrolled. 

From far-off Lebanon, with cedars crested, 
To where the waters of the Asphalt Lake 

On its white pebbles break, 
And the vast desert, silent, sand-invested, 
These kingdoms all are mine, and thine 
shall be, 

If thou wilt worship me ! 



Get thee behind me, Satan ! thou shalt wor- 
ship 

The Lord thy God ; Him only shalt thou 
serve ! 

ANGELS MINISTRANT. 

The sun goes down ; the evening shadows 

lengthen, 
The fever and the struggle of the day 

Abate and pass away ; 
Thine Angels Ministrant, we come to 

strengthen 
And comfort thee, and crown thee with the 
palm, 
The silence and the calm. 



$66 



CHRISTUS: A MYSTERY 



III 
THE MARRIAGE IN CANA 

THE MUSICIANS. 

Rise up, my love, my fair one, 
Rise up, and come away, 
For lo ! the winter is past, 
The rain is over and gone, 
The flowers appear on the earth, 
The time of the singing of birds is come, 
And the voice of the turtle is heard in 
our land. 

THE BRIDEGROOM. 

Sweetly the minstrels sing the Song of 

Songs ! 
My heart runs forward with it, and I say : 
Oh set me as a seal upon thine heart, 
And set me as a seal upon thine arm ; 
For love is strong as life, and strong as 

death, 
And cruel as the grave is jealousy ! 

THE MUSICIANS. 

I sleep, but my heart awaketh ; 

'T is the voice of my beloved 

Who knocketh, saying : Open to me, 

My sister, my love, my dove, 

For my head is filled with dew, 

My locks with the drops of the night ! 

THE BRIDE. 

Ah yes, I sleep, and yet my heart awaketh. 
It is the voice of my beloved who knocks. 

THE BRIDEGROOM. 

O beautiful as Rebecca at the fountain, 
O beautiful as Ruth among the sheaves ! 
O fairest among women ! O undefiled ! 
Thou art all fair, my love, there 's no spot 
in thee i 

THE MUSICIANS. 

My beloved is white and ruddy, 
The chiefest among ten thousand ; 
His locks are black as a raven, 
His eyes are the eyes of doves, 
Of doves by the rivers of water, 
His lips are like unto lilies, 
Dropping sweet-smelling myrrh. 

ARCHITRICLINUS. 

Who is that youth with the dark azure 
eyes, 



And hair, in color like unto the wine, 
Parted upon his forehead, and behind 
Falling in flowing locks ? 

PARANYMPHUS. 

The Nazarene 
Who preacheth to the poor in field and 

village 
The coming of God's Kingdom. 

ARCHITRICLINUS. 

How serene 
His aspect is ! manly yet womanly. 

PARANYMPHUS. 

Most beautiful among the sons of men ! 
Oft known to weep, but never known to 
laugh. 

ARCHITRICLINUS. 

And tell me, she with eyes of olive tint, 
And skin as fair as wheat, and pale brown 

hair, 
The woman at his side ? 

PARANYMPHUS. 

His mother, Mary. 

ARCHITRICLINUS. 

And the tall figure standing close behind 

them, 
Clad all in white, with face and beard like 



As if he were Elias, the White Witness, 
Come from his cave on Carmel to fore- 
tell 
The end of all things ? 

PARANYMPHUS. 

That is Manahem 
The Essenian, he who dwells among the 

palms 
Near the Dead Sea. 

ARCHITRICLINUS. 

He who foretold to Herod 
He should one day be King ? 

PARANYMPHUS. 

The same. 

ARCHITRICLINUS. 

Then why 
Doth he come here to sadden with his 
presence 



THE DIVINE TRAGEDY 



367 



Our marriage feast, belonging to a sect 
Haters of women, and. that taste not wine ? 

THE MUSICIANS. 

My undented is but one, 

The only one of her mother, 

The choice of her that bare her ; 

The daughters saw her and blessed her ; 

The queens and the concubines praised 

her ; 
Saying, Lo ! who is this 
That looketh forth as the morning ? 

manahem, aside. 
The Kuler of the Feast is gazing at me, 
As if he asked, why is that old man here 
Among the revellers ? And thou, the 

Anointed ! 
Why art thou here ? I see as in a vision 
A figure clothed in purple, crowned with 

thorns ; 
I see a cross uplifted in the darkness, 
And hear a cry of agony, that shall echo 
Forever and forever through the world ! 

ARCHITRICLINUS. 

Give us more wine. These goblets are all 
empty. 

MART to CHRISTUS. 

They have no wine J 

CHRISTUS. 

O woman, what have I 
To do with thee ? Mine hour is not yet 
come. 

MARY to the servants. 
Whatever he shall say to you, that do. 

CHRISTUS. 

Fill up these pots with water. 

THE MUSICIANS. 

Come, my beloved, 

Let us go forth into the field, 

Let us lodge in the villages ; 

Let us get up early to the vineyards, 

Let us see if the vine flourish, 

Whether the tender grape appear, 

And the pomegranates bud forth. 



Draw out now 
And bear unto the Ruler of the Feast. 



manahem, aside. 
O thou, brought up among the Essenians, 
Nurtured in abstinence, taste not the wine 1 
It is the poison of dragons from the vine- 
yards 
Of Sodom, and the taste of death is in it ! 

ARCHITRICLINUS to the BRIDEGROOM. 

All men set forth good wine at the be- 
ginning, 

And when men have well drunk, that which 
is worse ; 

But thou hast kept the good wine until 
now. 

manahem, aside. 

The things that have been and shall be no 

more, 
The things that are, and that hereafter 

shall be, 
The things that might have been, and yet 

were not, 
The fading twilight of great joys departed, 
The daybreak of great truths as yet un- 

risen, 
The intuition and the expectation 
Of something, which, when come, is not the 

same, 
But only like its forecast in men's dreams, 
The longing, the delay, and the delight, 
Sweeter for the delay ; youth, hope, love, 

death, 
And disappointment which is also death, 
All these make up the sum of human life ; 
A dream within a dream, a wind at night 
Howling across the desert in despair, 
Seeking for something lost it cannot find. 
Fate or foreseeing, or whatever name 
Men call it, matters not ; what is to be 
Hath been fore-written in the thought 

divine 
From the beginning. None can hide 

from it, 
But it will find him out ; nor run from it, 
But it o'ertaketh him I The Lord hath 

said it. 

the bridegroom to the bride, on the balcony,, 
When Abraham went with Sarah into 

Egypt, 

The land was all illumined with her 

beauty ; 
But thou dost make the very night itself 
Brighter than day ! Behold, in glad pro- 
cession, 



363 



CHRISTUS: A MYSTERY 



Crowding the threshold of the sky above us, 
The stars come forth to meet thee with 

their lamps ; 
And the soft winds, the ambassadors of 

flowers, 
From neighboring gardens and from fields 

unseen, 
Come laden with odors unto thee, my 

Queen ! 

THE MUSICIANS. 

Awake, O north-wind, 

And come, thou wind of the South. 

Blow, blow upon my garden, 

That the spices thereof may flow out. 



IV 
IN THE CORNFIELDS 

PHILIP. 

Onward through leagues of sun-illumined 

corn, 
As if through parted seas, the pathway 

runs, 
And crowned with sunshine as the Prince 

of Peace 
Walks the beloved Master, leading us, 
As Moses led our fathers in old times 
Out of the land of bondage ! We have 

found 
Him of whom Moses and the Prophets 

wrote, 
Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of Joseph. 

NATHANAEL. 

Can any good come out of Nazareth ? 
Can this be the Messiah ? 



Come and see. 

NATHANAEL. 

The summer sun grows hot : I am anhun- 
gered. 
How cheerily the Sabbath-breaking quail 
Pipes in the corn, and bids us to his Feast 
Of Wheat Sheaves ! How the bearded, 

ripening ears 
Toss in the roofless temple of the air ; 
As if the unseen hand of some High-Priest 
Waved them before Mount Tabor as an 

altar ! 
It were no harm, if we should pluck and eat. 



PHILIP. 

How wonderful it is to walk abroad 
With the Good Master ! Since the miracle 
He wrought at Cana, at the marriage feast, 
His fame hath gone abroad through all the 

land, 
And when we come to Nazareth, thou shalt 

see 
How his own people will receive their 

Prophet, 
And hail him as Messiah ! See, he turns 
And looks at thee. 

CHRISTUS. 

Behold an Israelite 
In whom there is no guile. 

NATHANAEL. 

Whence knowest thou me 1 

CHRISTUS. 

Before that Philip called thee, when thou 

wast 
Under the fig-tree, I beheld thee. 









NATHAN AEL. 

Rabb 
Thou art the Son of God, thou art the Ki 
Of Israel ! 



, 



CHRISTUS. 

Because I said I saw thee 
Under the fig-tree, before Philip called thee, 
Believest thou? Thou shalt see greater 

things. 
Hereafter thou shalt see the heavens un- 
closed, 
The angels of God ascending and descewd- 

ing 
Upon the Son of Man ! 

Pharisees, passing. 

Hail, Rabbi ! 



CHRISTUS. 



Hail! 



PHARISEES. 

Behold how thy disciples do a thing 
Which is not lawful on the Sabbath-day, 
And thou forbiddest them not .' 

CHRISTUS. 

Have ye not read 
What David did when he anhungered waSr 



THE DIVINE TRAGEDY 



3t>> 



And all they that were with him ? How 

he entered 
Into the house of God, and ate the shew- 

bread, 
Which was not lawful, saving for the 

priests ? 
Have ye not read, how on the Sabbath-days 
The priests profane the Sabbath in the 

Temple, 
And yet are blameless ? But I say to you, 
One in this place is greater than the 

Temple ! 
And had ye known the meaning of the 

words, 
I will have mercy and not sacrifice, 
The guiltless ye would not condemn. The 

Sabbath 
Was made for man, and not man for the 

Sabbath. 

Passes on with the disciples. 

PHARISEES. 

This is, alas ! some poor demoniac 
Wandering about the fields, and uttering 
His unintelligible blasphemies 
Among the common people, who receive 
As prophecies the words they comprehend 

not ! 
Deluded folk ! The incomprehensible 
Alone excites their wonder. There is none 
So visionary, or so void of sense, 
But he will find a crowd to follow him ! 



NAZARETH 

CHRISTUS, reading in the Synagogue. 
The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me. 
He hath anointed me to preach good tidings 
Unto the poor ; to heal the broken-hearted ; 
To comfort those that mourn, and to throw 

open 
The prison doors of captives, and proclaim 
The Year Acceptable of the Lord, our God ! 

He closes the book and sits down. 

A PHARISEE. 

Who is this youth ? He hath taken the 
Teacher's seat ! 



Will he instruct the Elders ? 



Fifty years 
Have I been Priest here in the Synagogue, 



And never have I seen so young a man 
Sit in the Teacher's seat ! 

CHRISTUS. 

Behold, to-day 
This scripture is fulfilled. One is appointed 
And hath been sent to them that mourn in 

Zion, 
To give them beauty for ashes, and the oil 
Of joy for mourning ! They shall build 

again 
The old waste-places ; and again raise up 
The former desolations, and repair 
The cities that are wasted ! As a bride- 
groom 
Decketh himself with ornaments ; as a bride 
Adorneth herself with jewels, so the Lord 
Hath clothed me with the robe of righteous- 
ness ! 

A PRIEST. 

He speaks the Prophet's words ; but with 

an air 
As if himself had been foreshadowed in 

them ! 

CHRISTUS. 

For Zion's sake I will not hold my peace, 

And for Jerusalem's sake I will not rest 

Until its righteousness be as a brightness, 

And its salvation as a lamp that burnetii ! 

Thou shalt be called no longer the For- 
saken, 

Nor any more thy land the Desolate. 

The Lord hath sworn, by his right hand 
hath sworn, 

And by his arm of strength : I will no more 

Give to thine enemies thy corn as meat ; 

The sons of strangers shall not drink thy 
wine. 

Go through, go through the gates ! Pre- 
pare a way 

Unto the people ! Gather out the stones ! 

Lift up a standard for the people ! 



Ah! 



A PRIEST. 

These are seditious words ! 

CHRISTUS. 

And they shall call them 
The holy people ; the redeemed of God ! 
And thou, Jerusalem, shalt be called Sought 

out, 
A city not forsaken ! 



37° 



CHRISTUS: A MYSTERY 



A PHARISEE. 

Is not this 
The carpenter Joseph's son ? Is not his 

mother 
Called Mary ? and his brethren and his 

sisters 
Are they not with us ? Doth he make 

himself 
To be a Prophet ? 

CHRISTUS. 

No man is a Prophet 
In his own country, and among his kin. 
In his own house no Prophet is accepted. 
I say to you, in the land of Israel 
Were many widows in Elijah's day, 
When for three years and more the heavens 

were shut, 
And a great famine was throughout the 

land ; 
But unto no one was Elijah sent 
Save to Sarepta, to a city of Sidon, 
And to a woman there that was a widow. 
And many lepers were there in the land 
Of Israel, in the time of Eliseus 
The Prophet, and yet none of them was 

cleansed, 
Save Naaman the Syrian ! 

A PRIEST. 

Say no more ! 
Thou comest here into our Synagogue 
And speakest to the Elders and the Priests, 
As if the very mantle of Elijah 
Had fallen upon thee ! Art thou not 
ashamed ? 

A PHARISEE. 

We want no Prophets here ! Let him be 

driven 
From Synagogue and city ! Let him go 
And prophesy to the Samaritans ! 

AN ELDER. 

The world is changed. We Elders are as 

nothing ! 
We are but yesterdays, that have no part 
Or portion in to-day ! Dry leaves that 

rustle, 
That make a little sound, and then are 

dust \ 

A PHARISEE. 

A carpenter's apprentice S a mechanic, 
Whom we have seen at work here in the 
town 



Day after day ; a stripling without learn- 
ing, 
Shall he pretend to unfold the Word of God 
To men grown old in study of the Law ? 
Christus is thrust out. 



VI 



THE SEA OF GALILEE 
Peter and Andrew mending their nets. 

PETER. 

Never was such a marvellous draught of 

fishes 
Heard of in Galilee ! The market-places 
Both of Bethsaida and Capernaum 
Are full of them ! Yet we had toiled all 

night 
And taken nothing, when the Master said : 
Launch out into the deep, and cast your 

nets ; 
And doing this, we caught such multitudes, 
Our nets like spiders' webs were snapped 

asunder, 
And with the draught we filled two ships 

so full 
That they began to sink. Then I knelt 

down 
Amazed, and said: O Lord, depart from me, 
I am a sinful man. And he made answer : 
Simon, fear not ; henceforth thou shalt 

catch men ! 
What was the meaning of those words ? 



I know not. 
But here is Philip, come from Nazareth. 
He hath been with the Master. Tell us 

Philip, 
What tidings dost thou bring ? 



Most wonderful \ 
As we drew near to Nain, out of the gate 
Upon a bier was carried the dead body 
Of a young man, his mother's only son, 
And she a widow, who with lamentation 
Bewailed her loss, and the much people 

with her ; 
And when the Master saw her he waf 

filled 

With pity ; and he said to her : Weep not ! 
And came and touched the bier, and they 

that bare it 



THE DIVINE TRAGEDY 



371 



Stood still ; and then he said : Young man, 

arise ! 
And he that had been dead sat up, and 

soon 
Began to speak ; and he delivered him 
Unto his mother. And there came a fear 
On all the people, and they glorified 
The Lord, and said, rejoicing : A great 

Prophet 
Is risen up among us ! and the Lord 
Hath visited his people ! 

PETER. 

A great Prophet ? 
\y, greater than a Prophet : greater even 
Than John the Baptist ! 



Yet the Nazarenes 



Rejected him. 



The Nazarenes are dogs ! 
As natural brute beasts, they growl at 

things 
They do not understand ; and they shall 

perish, 
Utterly perish in their own corruption. 
The Nazarenes are dogs ! 

PHILIP. 

They drave him forth 
Out of their Synagogue, out of their city, 
And would have cast him down a precipice, 
But, passing through the midst of them, he 

vanished 
Out of their hands. 

PETER. 

Wells are they without water, 
Clouds carried with a tempest, unto whom 
The mist of darkness is reserved forever ! 

PHILIP. 

Behold he cometh. There is one man with 

him 
I am amazed to see ! 

ANDREW. 

What man is that ? 

PHILIP. 

•fudas Iscariot ; he that cometh last, 
Girt with a leathern apron. No one 
knoweth 



His history ; but the rumor of him is 
He had an unclean spirit in his youth. 
It hath not left him yet. 

christus. passing. 

Come" unto me, 
All ye that labor and are heavy laden, 
And I will give you rest ! Come unto me, 
And take my yoke upon you and iearn of me, 
For I am meek, and I am lowly in heart, 
And ye shall all find rest unto your souls ! 



Oh, there is something in that voice that 

reaches 
The innermost recesses of my spirit ! 
I feel that it might say unto the blind : 
Receive your sight ! and straightway they 

would see ! 
I feel that it might say unto the dead, 
Arise ! and they would hear it and obey ! 
Behold, he beckons to us ! 

CHRISTUS, to PE'i ER and ANDREW. 

Follow me ! 

PETER. 

Master, I will leave all and follow thee. 



VII 



THE DEMONIAC OF GADARA 

A GADARENE. 

He hath escaped, hath plucked his chains 

asunder, 
And broken his fetters ; always night and 

day 
Is in the mountains here, and in the tombs, 
Crying aloud, and cutting himself with 

stones, 
Exceeding fierce, so that no man can tame 

him ! 

the demoniac from above, unseen. 
Aschmedai ! O Aschmedai, have pity ! 

A GADARENE. 

Listen ! It is his voice ! Go warn the people 
Just landing from the lake ! 

THE DEMONIAC. 

O Aschmedai J 
Thou angel of the bottomless pit, have 
pity! 



572 



CHRISTUS: A MYSTERY 



It was enough to hurl King Solomon, 

On whom be peace ! two hundred leagues 
away 

Into the country, and to make him scul- 
lion 

In the kitchen of the King of Maschke- 
men ! 

Why dost thou hurl me here among these 
rocks, 

And cut me with these stones ? 

A GADARENE. 

He raves and mutters 
He knows not what. 

THE demoniac, appearing from a tomb among 
the rocks. 

The wild cock Tarnegal 
Singeth to me, and bids me to the banquet, 
Where all the Jews shall come ; for they 

have slain 
Behemoth the great ox, who daily cropped 
A thousand hills for food, and at a draught 
Drank up the river Jordan, and have slain 
The huge Leviathan, and stretched his 

skin 
Upon the high walls of Jerusalem, 
And made them shine from one end of the 

world 
Unto the other ; and the fowl Barjuchne, 
Whose outspread wings eclipse the sun, 

and make 
Midnight at noon o'er all the continents ! 
And we shall drink the wine of Paradise 
From Adam's cellars. 

A GADARENE. 

O thou unclean spirit ! 

the demoniac, hurling down a stone. 

This is the wonderful Barjuchne's egg, 

That fell out of her nest, and broke to 
pieces 

And swept away three hundred cedar- 
trees, 

And threescore villages ! — Rabbi Eliezer, 

How thou didst sin there in that seaport 
town 

When thou hadst carried safe thy chest of 
silver 

Over the seven rivers for her sake ! 

I too have sinned beyond the reach of 
pardon. 

Ye hills and mountains, pray for mercy on 
me ! 



Ye stars and planets, pray for mercy on 

me ! 
Ye sun and moon, oh pray for mercy on 

me ! 

Christus and his disciples pass. 

A GADARENE. 

There is a man here of Decapolis, 

Who hath an unclean spirit ; so that none 

Can pass this way. He lives among the 

tombs 
Up there upon the cliffs, and hurls down 

stones 
On those who pass beneath. 



christus. 



Thou unclean spirit 



Come out of him, 



THE DEMONIAC 

What have I to do 
With thee, thou Son of God? Do not 
torment us. 



CHRISTUS. 

What is thy name ? 






THE DEMONIAC 

Legion ; for we are many, i 
Cain, the first murderer ; and the King 

Belshazzar, 
And Evil Merodach of Babylon, 
And Admatha, the death-cloud, prince of 

Persia ; 
And Aschmedai, the angel of the pit, 
And many other devils. We are Legion. 
Send us not forth beyond Decapolis ; 
Command us not to go into the deep ! 
There is a herd of swine here in the pas^ 

tures, 
Let us go into them. 

CHRISTUS. 

Come out of him, 
Thou unclean spirit ! 

A GADARENE. 

See, how stupefied, 
How motionless he stands ! He cries no 

more ; 
He seems bewildered and in silence stares 
As one who, walking in his sleep, awakes 
And knows not where he is, and looks 

about him, 
And at his nakedness, and is ashamed. 



THE DIVINE TRAGEDY 



373 



THE DEMONIAC. 


I pray thee come and lay thy hands upon 


Why am I here alone among the tombs ? 


her, 


What have they done to me, that I am 


And she shall live ! 


naked ? 




Ah, woe is me ! 


CHRISTUS. 




Who was it touched my garments "l 


CHRISTUS. 




Go home unto thy friends 


SIMON PETER. 


And tell them how great things the Lord 


Thou seest the multitude that throng ana 


hath done 


press thee, 


For thee, and how He had compassion on 


And sayest thou : Who touched me ? 


thee ! 


'T was not I. 


A swineherd, running. 


CHRISTUS. 


The herds ! the herds ! O most unlucky 


Some one hath touched my garments ; I 


day ! 


perceive 


They were all feeding quiet in the sun, 


That virtue is gone out of me. 


When suddenly they started, and grew 




savage 


A WOMAN. 


As the wild boars of Tabor, and together 


O Master ! 


Rushed down a precipice into the sea ! 


Forgive me ! For I said within myself, 


They are all drowned ! 


If I so much as touch his garment's hem, 




I shall be whole. 


PETER. 




Thus righteously are punished 


CHRISTUS. 


The apostate Jews, that eat the flesh of 


Be of good comfort, daughter! 


swine, 


Thy faith hath made thee whole. Depart 


And broth of such abominable things ! 


in peace. 


GREEKS OF GADARA. 


A messenger from the house. 


We sacrifice a sow unto Demeter 


Why troublest thou the Master ? Hearest 


At the beginning of harvest, and another 


thou not 


To Dionysus at the vintage-time. 


The flute-players, and the voices of the wo- 


Therefore we prize our herds of swine, and 


men 


count them 


Singing their lamentation ? She is dead ! 


Not as unclean, but as things consecrate 




To the immortal gods. great magician, 


THE MINSTRELS AND MOURNERS. 


Depart out of our coasts ; let us alone, 


We have girded ourselves with sackcloth J 


We are afraid of thee. 


We have covered our heads with ashes ! 




For our young men die, and our maidens 


PETER. 


Swoon in the streets of the city ; 


Let us depart ; 


And into their mother's bosom 


For they that sanctify and purify 


They pour out their souls like water ! 


Themselves in gardens, eating flesh of swine, 




And the abomination, and the mouse, 


christus, going in. 


Shall be consumed together, saith the Lord ! 


Give place. Why make ye this ado, and 


, 


weep . 
She is not dead, but sleepeth. 


VIII 






the mother, from within. 


TALITHA CUMI 


Cruel Death ! 




To take away from me this tender blos- 


JAirus at the feet o/christus. 


som ! 


Master ! I entreat thee ! I implore thee ! 


To take away my dove, my lamb, my (iai* 


My daughter lieth at the point of death ; 


ling! 



374 



CHRISTUS: A MYSTERY 



THE MINSTRELS AND MOURNERS. 

He hath led me and brought into darkness, 
Like the dead of old in dark places ! 
He hath bent his bow, and hath set me 
Apart as a mark for his arrow ! 
He hath covered himself with a cloud, 
That our prayer should not pass through 
and reach him ! 

THE CROWD. 

He stands beside her bed ! He takes her 

hand ! 
Listen, he speaks to her ! 

christus, within. 

Maiden, arise ! 

the crowd. 
See, she obeys his voice ! She stirs ! She 

lives ! 
Her mother holds her folded in her arms ! 
O miracle of miracles ! O marvel ! 



IX 



THE TOWER OF MAGDALA 

MARY MAGDALENE. 

Companionless, unsatisfied, forlorn, 
I sit here in this lonely tower, and look 
Upon the lake below me, and the hills 
That swoon with heat, and see as in a 

vision 
All my past life unroll itself before me. 
The princes and the merchants come to 

me, 
Merchants of Tyre and Princes of Damas- 
cus, 
And pass, and disappear, and are no more ; 
But leave behind their merchandise and 

jewels, 
Their perfumes, and their gold, and their 

disgust. 
I loathe them, and the very memory of tbem 
Is unto me as thought of food to one 
Cloyed with the luscious figs of Dalmanu- 

tha! 
What if hereafter, in the long hereafter 
Of endless joy or pain, or joy in pain, 
It were my punishment to be with them 
Grown hideous and decrepit in their sins, 
And hear them say : Thou that hast brought 

us here, 
Be unto us as thou hast been of old I 



I look upon this raiment that I wear, 
These silks, and these embroideries, and 

they seem 
Only as cerements wrapped about my 

limbs ! 
I look upon these rings thick set with pearls, 
And emerald and amethyst and jasper, 
And they are burning coals upon my flesh S 
This serpent on my wrist becomes alive ! 
Away, thou viper ! and away, ye garlands, 
Whose odors bring the swift remembrance 

back 
Of the unhallowed revels in these cham- 
bers ! 
But yesterday, — and yet it seems to me 
Something remote, like a pathetic song 
Sung long ago by minstrels in the street, — ■ 
But yesterday, as from this tower I gazed, 
Over the olive and the walnut trees 
Upon the lake and the white ships, and 

wondered 
Whither and whence they steered, and who 

was in them, 
A fisher's boat drew near the landing-place 
Under the oleanders, and the people 
Came up from it, and passed beneath the 

tower, 
Close under me. In front of them, as 

leader, 
Walked one of royal aspect, clothed in 

white, 
Who lifted up his eyes, and looked at me, 
And all at once the air seemed filled and 

living 
With a mysterious power, that streamed 

from him, 
And overflowed me with an atmosphere 
Of light and love. As one entranced I 

stood, 
And when I woke again, lo ! he was gone ; 
So that I said : Perhaps it is a dream. 
But from that very hour the seven demons 
That had their habitation in this body 
Which men call beautiful, departed from 



This morning, when the first gleam of the 
dawn 

Made Lebanon a glory in the air, 

And all below was darkness, I beheld 

An angel, or a spirit glorified, 

With wind-tossed garments walking on the 
lake. 

The face I could not see, but I distin- 
guished 



THE DIVINE TRAGEDY 



375 



The attitude and gesture, and I knew 
'T was he that healed me. And the gusty- 
wind 
Brought to mine ears a voice, which seemed 

to say : 
Be of good cheer ! 'T is I ! Be not afraid ! 
And from the darkness, scarcely heard, the 

answer : 
If it be thou, bid me come unto thee 
Upon the water ! And the voice said : 

Come ! 
And then I heard a cry of fear : Lord, 

save me ! 
As of a drowning man. And then the 

voice : 
Why didst thou doubt, O thou of little 

faith ! 
At this all vanished, and the wind was 

hushed, 
And the great sun came up above the hills, 
And the swift-flying vapors hid themselves 
In caverns among the rocks ! Oh, I must 

find him 
And follow him, and be with him forever ! 

Thou box of alabaster, in whose walls 
The souls of flowers lie pent, the precious 

balm 
And spikenard of Arabian farms, the spirits 
Of aromatic herbs, ethereal natures 
Nursed by the sun and dew, not all un- 
worthy 
To bathe his consecrated feet, whose step 
Makes every threshold holy that he crosses ; 
Let us go forth upon our pilgrimage, 
Thou and I only ! Let us search for him 
Until we find him, and pour out our souls 
Before his feet, till all that 's left of us 
Shall be the broken caskets that once held 



THE HOUSE OF SIMON THE PHARISEE 

A guest at table. 
Are ye deceived ? Have any of the Rulers 
Believed on him ? or do they know indeed 
This man to be the very Christ ? Howbeit 
We know whence this man is, but when the 

Christ 
Shall come, none knoweth whence he is. 

CHRISTUS. 

Whereunto shall I liken, then, the men 



Of this generation ? and what are they 

like? 
They are like children sitting in the mar- 
kets, 
And calling unto one another, saying : 
We have piped unto you, and ye have not 

danced ; 
We have mourned unto you, and ye have 

not wept ! 
This say I unto you, for John the Baptist 
Came neither eating bread nor drinking 

wine ; 
Ye say he hath a devil. The Son of Man 
Eating and drinking cometh, and ye say : 
Behold a gluttonous man, and a wine-bib- 
ber ; 
Behold a friend of publicans and sinners ! 

A guest aside to simon. 
Who is that woman yonder, gliding in 
So silently behind him ? 

SIMON. 

It is Mary, 
Who dwelleth in the Tower of Magdala. 

THE GUEST. 

See, how she kneels there weeping, and her 

tears 
Fall on his feet ; and her long, golden hair 
Waves to and fro and wipes them dry again. 
And now she kisses them, and from a box 
Of alabaster is anointing them 
With precious ointment, filling all the house 
With its sweet odor ! 

simon, aside. 

Oh, this man, forsooth, 
Were he indeed a Prophet, would have 

known 
Who and what manner of woman this may 

be 
That toucheth him ! would know she is z 



CHKISTUS. 

Simon, somewhat have I to say to thee. 

SIMON. 

Master, say on. 

CHKISTUS. 

A certain creditor 
Had once two debtors ; and the one of them 
Owed him five hundred pence ; the other 
fifty. 



376 



CHRISTUS: A MYSTERY 



They having naught to pay withal, he 

frankly 
Forgave them both. Now tell me which of 

them 
Will love him most ? 

SIMON. 

He, I suppose, to whom 
He most forgave. 

CHRISTUS. 

Yea, thou hast rightly judged. 
Seest thou this woman ? When thine 

house I entered, 
Thou gavest me no water for my feet, 
But she hath washed them with her tears, 

and wiped them 
With her own hair. Thou gavest me no 

kiss ; 
This woman hath not ceased, since I came 

To kiss my feet. My head with oil didst 
thou 

A.noint not ; hut this woman hath anointed 

Mv feet with ointment. Hence I say to 
thee, 

Her sins, which have been many, are for- 
given, 

For she loved much. 

THE GUESTS. 

Oh, who, then, is this man 
That pardoneth also sins without atone- 
ment ? 

CHRISTUS. 

Woman, thy faith hath saved thee ! Go in 
peace 1 



THE. SECOND PASSOVER 

I 
BEFORE THE GATES OF MACHLERUS 

MANAHEM. 

Welcome, O wilderness, and welcome, 

night 
And solitude, and ye swift-flying stars 
That drift with golden sands the barren 

heavens, 
Welcome once more ! The Angels of the 

Wind 



Hasten across the desert to receive me ; 
And sweeter than men's voices are to me 
The voices of these solitudes ; the sound 
Of unseen rivulets, and the far-off cry 
Of bitterns in the reeds of water-pools. 
And lo ! above me, like the Prophet's arrow 
Shot from the eastern window, high in air 
The clamorous cranes go singing through 
the night. 

ye mysterious pilgrims of the air, 
Would I had wings that I might follow 

you! 

1 look forth from these mountains, and be- 

hold 
The omnipotent and omnipresent night, 
Mysterious as the future and the fate 
That hangs o'er all men's lives ! I see be- 
neath me 
The desert stretching to the Dead Sea shore, 
And westward, faint and far away, the 

glimmer 
Of torches on Mount Olivet, announcing 
The rising of the Moon of Passover. 
Like a great cross it seems, on which sus- 
pended, 
With head bowed down in agony, I see 
A human figure ! Hide, O merciful heaven, 
The awful apparition from my sight ! 

And thou, Machserus, lifting high and black 
Thy dreadful walls against the rising moon, 
Haunted by demons and by apparitions, 
Lilith, and Jezerhara, and Bedargon, 
How grim thou showest in the uncertain 

light, 
A palace and a prison, where King Herod 
Feasts with Herodias, while the Baptist 

John 
Fasts, and consumes his unavailing life ! 
And in thy court-yard grows the untithed 

rue, 
Huge as the olives of Gethsemane, 
And ancient as the terebinth of Hebroi 
Coeval with the world. Would that 

leaves 

Medicinal could purge thee of the demons 
That now possess thee, and the cunning foy 
That burrows in thy walls, contriving mis- 
chief ! 

Music is heard from within. 

Angels of God ! Sandalphon, thou thai 

weavest 
The prayers of men into immortal garland^ 



ithed 
m, 



THE DIVINE TRAGEDY 



37? 



And thou, Metatron, who dost gather up 


MANAHEM. 


Their songs, and bear them to the gates of 


Yea, I remember it. 


heaven, 




Now gather up together in your hands 


HEROD. 


The prayers that iill this prison, and the 


Thinking thou didst not know me, I re 


songs 


plied : 


That echo from the ceiling of this palace, 


I am of humble birth ; whereat thou, smil- 


^.nd lay them side by side before Gods 


ing, 


feet ! 


Didst smite me with thy hand, and said si 


He enters the casde. 


again : 




Thou shalt be King ; and let the friendly 

blows 
That Manahem hath given thee on this day 


II 




Remind thee of the fickleness of fortune. 


HEROD'S BANQUET-HALL 






MANAHEM. 


MANAHEM. 


What more ? 


Thou hast sent for me, King, and I am 


HEROD. 


here. 


No more. 


HEROD. 


MANAHEM. 


Who art thou ? 


Yea, for I said to thee : 


MANAHEM. 


It shall be well with thee if thou love jus- 
tice 


Manahem, the Essenian. 




And clemency towards thy fellow-men. 


HEROD. 

T recognize thy features, but what mean 


Hast thou done this, King ? 


These torn and faded garments ? On thy 


HEROD. 


road 


Go, ask my people. 


Have demons crowded thee, and rubbed 




against thee, 


MANAHEM. 


And given thee weary knees ? A cup of 


And then, foreseeing all thy life, I added : 


wine ! 


But these thou wilt forget ; and at the end 




Of life the Lord will punish thee. 


MANAHEM. 




The Essenians drink no wine. 


HEROD. 




The end ! 


HEROD. 


When will that come ? For this I sent to 


What wilt thou, then ? 


thee. 




How long shall I still reign ? Thou dost 


MANAHEM. 


not answer ! 


Nothing. 


Speak ! shall I reign ten years ? 


HEROD. 




Not even a cup of water ? 


MANAHEM. 


Thou shalt reign twenty, 


MANAHEM. 


Nay, thirty years. I cannot name the end. 


Nothing. 




Why hast thou sent for me ? 


HEROD. 




Thirty ? I thank thee, good Essenian ! 


HEROD. 


This is my birthday, and a happier one 


Dost thou remember 


Was never mine. We hold a banquet here. 


One day when I, a schoolboy in the streets 


See, yonder are Herodias and her daughter. 


Of the great city, met thee on my way 




To school, and thou didst say to me : Here- 


manahem, aside. 


after 
Thou shalt be king ? 


'Tis said that devils sometimes take the 


shape 



378 



CHRISTUS: A MYSTERY 



Of ministering angels, clothed with air, 
That they may be inhabitants of earth, 
And lead man to destruction. Such are 
these. 

HEROD. 

Knowest thou John the Baptist ? 

MANAHEM. 

Yea, I know him ; 
Who knows him not ? 

HEROD. 

Know, then, this John the Baptist 
Said that it was not lawful I should marry 
My brother Philip's wife, and John the 

Baptist 
Is here in prison. In my father's time 
Matthias Margaloth was put to death 
For tearing the golden eagle from its sta- 
tion 
Above the Temple Gate, — a slighter 

crime 
Than John is guilty of. These things are 

warnings 
To intermeddlers not to play with eagles, 
Living or dead. I think too Kssenians 
Are wiser, or more wary, are they not ? 

MANAHEM. 

The Essenians do not marry. 



Thou hast given 
My words a meaning foreign to my 
thought. 

MANAHEM. 

Let me go hence, O King ! 

HEROD. 

Stay yet awhile, 
And see the daughter of Herodias dance. 
Cleopatra of Jerusalem, my mother, 
In her best days, was not more beautiful. 
Music. The Daughter of Herodias dances. 

HEROD. 

Oh, what was Miriam dancing with her 

timbrel, 
Compared to this one ? 

MANAHEM, aside. 

O thou Angel of Death, 
Dancing at funerals among the women, 



When men bear out the dead ! The air is 

hot 
And stifles me ! Oh for a breath of air ! 
Bid me depart, O King ! 

HEROD. 

Not yet. Come hither, 
Salome, thou enchantress ! Ask of me 
Whate'er thou wilt ; and even unto the 

half 
Of all my kingdom, I will give it thee, 
As the Lord liveth ! 

daughter of berodias, kneeling. 

Give me here the head 
Of John the Baptist on this silver charger ! 



HEROD. 

Not that, dear child ! I dare not ; for the 

people 
Regard John as a prophet. 






DAUGHTER OF HERODIAS. 



Thou hast sworn it. 



For mine oath's sake, then. Send unto the 

prison ; 
Let him die quickly. Oh, accursed oath ! 

MANAHEM. 

Bid me depart, O King ! 

HEROD. 

Good Manahem, i 
Give me thy hand. I love the Essenians. 
He 's gone and hears me not ! The guests 

are dumb, 
Awaiting the pale face, the silent witness. 
The lamps flare ; and the curtains of the 

doorways 
Wave to and fro as if a ghost were 

passing ! 
Strengthen my heart, red wine of Ascalon ! 



Ill 



UNDER THE WALLS OF MACFLERUS 

manahem, rushing out. 
Away from this Palace of sin ! 
The demons, the terrible powers 
Of the air, that haunt its towers 
And hide in its water-spouts, 



THE DIVINE TRAGEDY 



379 



Deafen me with the din 

Of their laughter and their shouts 

For the crimes that are done within ! 

Sink hack into the earth, 

Or vanish into the air, 

Thou castle of despair ! 

Let it all be but a dream 

Of the things of monstrous birth. 

Of the things that only seem ! 

White Au gel of the Moon, 

Onafiel ! be my guide 

Out of this hateful place 

Of sin and death, nor hide 

In yon black cloud too soon 

Thy pale and tranquil face ! 

A trumpet is blown from, the walls. 
Hark ! hark ! It is the? Dreath 
Of the trump of doom and death, 
From the battlements overhead 
Like a burden of sorrow east 
On the midnight and the biavit, 
A wailing for the dead, 
That the gusts drop and uplirfc ! 
O Herod, thy vengeance is switt I 
O Herodias, thou hast been 
The demon, the evil thing, 
That in place of Esther the Qa^&n y 
In place of the lawful bride, 
Hast lain at night by the side 
Of Ahasuerus the king ! 

The trumpet again. 
The Prophet of God is dead ! 
At a drunken monarch's call, 
At a dancing-woman's beck, 
They have severed that stubbo^i n^cfe 
And into the banquet-hall 
Are bearing the ghastly head ! 

A body is thrown from the tourer. 
A torch of lurid red 
Lights the window with its glow : 
And a white mass as of snow 
Is hurled into the abyss 
Of the black precipice, 
That yawns for it below ! 
O hand of the Most High, 
O hand of Adonai ! 
Bury it, hide it away 
From the birds and beasts of pwsy, 
\nd the eyes of the homicide, 
More pitiless than they, 
As thou didst bury of yore 
The body of him that died 
On the mountain of Peor 1 



Even now I behold a sign, 

A threatening of wrath divine, 

A watery, wandering star, 

Through whose streaming hair, and the 

white 
Unfolding garments of light, 
That trail behind it afar, 
The constellations shine ! 
And the whiteness and brightness appeal 
Like the Angel bearing the Seer 
By the hair of his head, in the might 
And rush of his vehement flight. 
And I listen until I hear 
From fathomless depths of the sky 
The voice of his prophecy 
Sounding louder and more near .' 

Malediction ! malediction ! 
May the lightnings of heaven fall 
On palace and prison wall, 
And their desolation be 
As the day of fear and affliction, 
As the day of anguish and ire, 
With the burning and fuel of fire, 
In the Valley of the Sea ! 



IV 



NICODEMUS AT NIGHT 

NICODEMUS. 

The streets are silent. The dark houses 

seem 
Like sepulchres, in which the sleepers lie 
Wrapped in their shrouds, and for the mo- 
ment dead. 
The lamps are all extinguished ; only one 
Burns steadily, and from the door its light 
Lies like a shining gate across the street. 
He waits for me. Ah, should this be at last 
The long-expected Christ ! I see him there 
Sitting alone, deep-buried in his thought, 
As if the weight of all the world were rest- 
ing 
Upon him, and thus bowed him down. O 

Rabbi, 
We know thou art a Teacher come from 

God, 
For no man can perform the miracles 
Thou dost perform, except the Lord be with 

him. 
Thou art a Prophet, sent here to proclaim 
The Kingdom of the Lord. Behold in me 



380 



CHRISTUS: A MYSTERY 



A Ruler of the Jews, who long have waited 
The coming of that kingdom. Tell me of it. 

CHRISTUS. 

Verily, verily I say unto thee, 

Except a man be born again, he cannot 

Behold the Kingdom of God ! 

NICODEMUS. 

Be born again ? 
How can a man be born when he is old ? 
Say, can he enter for a second time 
Into his mother's womb, and so be born ? 

CHRISTUS. 

</erily I say unto thee, except 
A man be born of water and the spirit, 
He cannot enter into the Kingdom of God. 
For that which of the flesh is born, is 

flesh ; 
And that which of the spirit is born, is 

spirit. 

NICODEMUS- 

We Israelites from the Primeval Man 
Adam Ahelion derive our bodies ; 
Our souls are breathings of the Holy Ghost. 
No more than this we know, or need to 
know. 

CHRISTUS. 

Then marvel not, that I said unto thee 
Ye must be born again. 

NICODEMUS. 

The mystery 
Of birth and death we cannot comprehend. 

CHRISTUS. 

The wind bloweth where it listeth, and we 

hear 
The sound thereof, but know not whence it 

cometh, 
Nor whither it goeth. So is every one 
Born of the spirit ! 

nicodemus, aside. 

How can these things be ? 
He seems to speak of some vague realm of 

shadows, 
Some unsubstantial kingdom of the air ! 
It is not this the Jews are waiting for, 
Nor can this be the Christ, the Son of 

David, 
Who shall deliver us ! 



CHRISTUS. 

Art thou a master 
Of Israel, and knowest not these things ? 
We speak that we do know, and testify 
That we have seen, and ye will not receive 
Our witness. If I tell you earthly things, 
And ye believe not, how shall ye believe, 
If I should tell you of things heavenly ? 
And no man hath ascended up to heaven, 
But He alone that first came down fron 

heaven, 
Even the Son of Man which is in heaven S 

nicodemus, aside. 
This is a dreamer of dreams ; a visionary, 
Whose brain is overtasked, until he deems 
The unseen world to be a thing substantial, 
And this we live in, an unreal vision ! 
And yet nis presence fascinates and fills me 
With wonder, and I feel myself exalted 
Into a higher region, and become 
Myself in part a dreamer of his dreams, 
A seer of his visions ! 

CHRISTUS. 

And as Moses 
Uplifted the serpent in the wilderness, 
So must the Son of Man be lifted up ; 
That whosoever shall believe in Him 
Shall perish not, but have eternal life. 
He that believes in Him is not condemned ; 
He that believes not, is condemned already. 

NicoDEMus, aside. 
He speaketh like a Prophet of the Lord ! 

CHRISTUS. 

This is the condemnation ; that the light 
Is come into the world, and men loved 

darkness 
Rather* than light, because their deeds are 

evil ! 

nicodemus, aside. 
Of me he speaketh ! He reproveth me, 
Because I come by night to question him i 

CHRISTUS. 

For every one that doeth evil deeds 
Hateth the light, nor cometh to the light, 
Lest he should be reproved. 

nicodemus, aside. 

Alas, how truiy 
He readeth what is passing in my heart ! 



THE DIVINE TRAGEDY 



3*i 



CHRISTUS. 


BARTIMEUS. 


But he that doeth truth comes to the light, 


I have not seen a glimmer of the light 


So that his deeds may be made manifest, 


Since thou wast born. I never saw thy face, 


That they are wrought in God. 


And yet I seem to see it ; and one day 




Perhaps shall see it ; for there is a Prophet 


NICODEMUS. 


In Galilee, the Messiah, the Son of David, 


Alas ! alas ! 


Who heals the blind, if I could only find 




him. 


V 


I hear the sound of many feet approaching 9 




And voices, like the murmur of a crowd 1 


BLIND BARTIMEUS 


What seest thou ? 


BARTIMEUS. 






CHILION. 


Be not impatient, Chilion ; it is pleasant 


A young man clad in white 


To sit here in the shadow of the walls 
Under the palms, and hear the hum of 


Is coming through the gateway, and a 
crowd 


bees, 
And rumor of voices passing to and fro, 


Of people follow. 


And drowsy bells of caravans on their way 


BARTIMEUS. 


To Sidon or Damascus. This is still 


Can it be the Prophet ! 


The City of Palms, and yet the walls thou 


neighbors, tell me who it is that passes ? 


seest 




Are not the old walls, not the walls where 


ONE OF THE CROWD. 


Rahab 


Jesus of Nazareth. 


Hid the two spies, and let them down by 




cords 


bartimeus, crying. 


Out of the window, when the gates were 


Son of David ! 


shut, 


Have mercy on me ! 


And it was dark. Those walls were over- 




thrown 


MANY OF THE CROWD. 


When Joshua's army shouted, and the 


Peace, Blind Bartimeus ! 


priests 


Do not disturb the Master. 


Blew with their seven trumpets. 






BARTIMEUS, crying more vehemently. 


CHILION. 


Son of David,. 


When was that ? 


Have mercy on me ! 


BARTIMEUS. 


ONE OF THE CROWD. 


my sweet rose of Jericho, I know not. 


See, the Master stops. 


Hundreds of years ago. And over there 


Be of good comfort ; rise, He calleth thee ! 


Beyond the river, the great prophet Elijah 




Was taken by a whirlwind up to heaven 


bartimeus, casting away his cloak. 


In chariot of fire, with fiery horses. 


Chilion ! good neighbors ! lead me on. 


That is the plain of Moab ; and beyond 




it 


CHRISTUS. 


Rise the blue summits of Mount Abarim, 


What wilt thou 


Nebo and Pisgah and Peor, where Moses 


That I should do to thee ? 


Died, whom the Lord knew face to face, 




and whom 


BARTIMEUS. 


He buried in a valley, and no man 


Good Lord ! my sight — 


Knows of his sepulchre unto this day. 


That I receive my sight ! 


CHILION. 


CHRISTUS. 


Would thou couldst see these places, as I 


Receive thy sight f 


see them. 


Thy faith hath made thee whole ! 



382 



CHRISTUS: A MYSTERY 






THE CROWD. 

He sees again ! 

Christus passes on. The crowd gathers round 
Bartimeus. 

bartimeus. 

I see again ; but sight bewilders me ! 

Like a remembered dream, familiar things 

Come back to me. I see the tender sky 

Above me, see the trees, the city walls, 

And the old gateway, through whose echo- 
ing arch 

I groped so many years ; and you, my 
neighbors ; 

But know you by your friendly voices only. 

How beautiful the world is ! and how 
wide ! 

Oh, I am miles away, if I but look ! 

Where art thou, Chilion ? 



CHILION. 

Father, 

BARTIMEUS. 



I am here. 



Oh let me gaze upon thy face, dear child ! 
For I have only seen thee with my hands ! 
How beautiful thou art ! I should have 

known thee ; 
Thou hast her eyes whom we shall see 

hereafter ! 
O God of Abraham ! Elion ! Adonai ! 
Who art thyself a Father, pardon me 
If for a moment I have thee postponed 
To the affections and the thoughts of 

earth, 
Thee, and the adoration that I owe thee, 
When by thy power alone these darkened 

eyes 
Have been unsealed again to see thy light ! 



VI 

JACOB'S WELL 

A SAMARITAN WOMAN. 

The sun is hot ; and the dry east-wind 

blowing 
Fills all the air with dust. The birds are 

silent ; 
Even the little fieldfares in the corn 
No longer twitter ; only the grasshoppers 
Sing their incessant song of sun and sum- 



I wonder who those strangers were I met 

Going into the city ? Galileans 

They seemed to me in speaking, when thej 
asked 

The short way to the market-place. Per- 
haps 

They are fishermen from the lake ; or 
travellers, 

Looking to find the inn. And here is some 
one 

Sitting beside the well ; another stranger ; 

A Galilean also by his looks. 

What can so many Jews be doing here 

Together in Samaria ? Are they going 

Up to Jerusalem to the Passover ? 

Our Passover is better here at Sychem, 

For here is Ebal ; here is Gerizim, 

The mountain where our father Abra- 
ham 

Went up to offer Isaac ; here the tomb 

Of Joseph, — for they brought his bones 
from Egypt 

And buried them in this land, and it is 
holy. 

CHRISTUS. 

Give me to drink. 






SAMARITAN WOMAN. 

How can it be that thou, 
Being a Jew, askest to drink of me 
Which am a woman of Samaria ? 
You Jews despise us ; have no dealings 

with us ; 
Make us a byword ; call us in derision 
The silly folk of Sychar. Sir, how is it 
Thou askest drink of me ? 

CHRISTUS. 

If thou hadst known 
The gift of God, and who it is that sayeth 
Give me to drink, thou wouldst have asked 

of Him ; 
He would have given thee the living water. 

SAMARITAN WOMAN. 

Sir, thou hast naught to draw with, and the 

well 
Is deep ! Whence hast thou living water ? 
Say, art thou greater than our father 

Jacob, 
Which gave this well to us, and drank 

thereof 
Himself, and all his children and his 

cattle ? 



THE DIVINE TRAGEDY 



3*3 



CHRISTUS. 

Ah, whosoever drinketh of this water 
Shall thirst again ; but whosoever drinketh 
The water I shall give him shall not thirst 
Forevermore, for it shall be within him 
A well of living water, springing up 
Into life everlasting. 

SAMARITAN WOMAN. 

Every day 
I must go to and fro, in heat and cold, 
And I am weary. Give me of this water, 
That I may thirst not, nor come here to 
draw. 

CHRISTUS. 

Go call thy husband, woman, and come 
hither. 

SAMARITAN WOMAN. 

I have no husband, Sir. 

CHRISTUS. 

Thou hast well said 
I have no husband. Thou hast had five 

husbands ; 
And he whom now thou hast is not thy 

husband. 

SAMARITAN WOMAN. 

Surely thou art a Prophet, for thou readest 
The hidden things of life ! Our fathers 

worshipped 
Upon this mountain Gerizim ; and ye say 
The only place in which men ought to wor- 
ship 
Is at Jerusalem. 

CHRISTUS. 

Believe me, woman, 
The hour is coming, when ye neither shall 
Upon this mount, nor at Jerusalem, 
Worship the Father ; for the hour is coming, 
And is now come, when the true worship- 
pers 
Shall worship the Father in spirit and in 

truth ! 
The Father seeketh such to worship Him. 
God is a spirit : and they that worship Him 
Must worship Him in spirit and in truth. 

SAMARITAN WOMAN. 

Master, I know that the Messiah cometh, 
Which is called Christ ; and He will tell 
us all things. 



CHRISTUS. 

I that speak unto thee am He ! 

the disciples, returning. 

Behold, 
The Master sitting by the well, and talk- 
ing 
With a Samaritan woman ! With a womai 
Of Sychar, the silly people, always boast 

iug 
Of their Mount Ebal, and Mount Gerizim, 
Their Everlasting Mountain, which they 

think 
Higher and holier than our Mount Moriah 1 
Why, once upon the Feast of the New 

Moon, 
When our gr„at Sanhedrim of Jerusalem 
Had all its watch-fires kindled on the hills 
To warn the distant villages, these people 
Lighted up others to mislead the Jews, 
And make a mockery of their festival ! 
See, she has left the Master ; and is run- 
ning 
Back to the city ! 

SAMARITAN WOMAN. 

Oh, come see a man 
Who hath told me all things that I ever 

did! 
Say, is not this the Christ ? 

THE DISCIPLES. 

Lo, Master, her© 
Is food, that we have brought thee from 

the city. 
We pray thee eat it. 

CHRISTUS. 

I have food to eat 
Ye know not of. 

the disciples, to each other. 

Hath any man been here, 
And brought Him aught to eat, while we 
were gone ? 

CHRISTUS. 

The food I speak of is to do the will 

Of Him that sent me, and to finish his 

work. 
Do ye not say, Lo ! there are yet four 

months 
And cometh harvest ? I say unto you, 
Lift up your eyes, and look upon the fields, 
For they are white already unto harvest 1 



$H 



CHRISTUS: A MYSTERY 



VII 



THE COASTS OF C.ESAREA PHILIPPI 

christus, going up the mountain. 
Who do the people say I am ? 

JOHN. 

Some say 
That thou art John the Baptist ; some, 

Elias ; 
And others Jeremiah. 

JAMBS. 

Or that one 
Of the old Prophets is arisen again. 

CHRISTUS. 

But who say ye I am ? 



Thou art the Christ ! 
Thou art the Son of God ! 

CHRISTUS. 

Blessed art thou, 
Simon Barjona ! Flesh and blood hath 

not 
Revealed it unto thee, but even my Father, 
Which is in Heaven. And I say unto thee 
That thou art Peter ; and upon this rock 
I build my Church, and all the gates of 

Hell 
Shall not prevail against it. But take heed 
Ye tell to no man that I am the Christ. 
For I must go up to Jerusalem, 
And suffer many things, and be rejected 
Of the Chief Priests, and of the Scribes and 

Elders, 
And must be crucified, and the third day 
Shall rise again ! 

PETER. 

Be it far from thee, Lord ! 
This shall not be ! 

CHRISTUS. 

Get thee behind me, Satan ! 
Thou savorest not the things that be of 

God, 
But those that be of men ! If any will 
Come after me, let him deny himself, 
And daily take his cross, and folio w me. 



For whosoever will save his life shall lose 

it, 
And whosoever will lose his life shall find 

it. 
For wherein shall a man be profited 
If he shall gain the whole world, and shall 

lose 
Himself or be a castaway ? 

james, after a long pause. 

Why doth 
The Master lead us up into this mountain ? 

PETER. 

He goeth up to pray. 

JOHN. 

See, where He standeth 

Above us on the summit of the hill ! 

His face shines as the sun ! and all his 
raiment 

Exceeding white as snow, so as no fuller 

On earth can white them ! He is not 
alone ; 

There are two with Him there ; two men 
of eld, 

Their white beards blowing on the moun- 
tain air, 

Are talking with him. 

JAMES. 

I am sore afraid X 

PETER. 

Who and whence are they ? 



Moses and Elias ! 

PETER. 

O Master ! it is good for us to be here ! 

If thou wilt, let us make three taberna* ] 

cles ; 
For thee one, and for Moses and Elias I 



Behold a bright cloud sailing in the sun I 
It overshadows us. A golden mist 
Now hides them from us, and envelops us 
And all the mountain in a luminous shadow ! 
1 see no more. The nearest rocks are hid- 
den. 

VOICE from the cloud. 
Lo ! this is my beloved Son ! Hear Him \ 



THE DIVINE TRAGEDY 



385 



PETER. 

It is the voice of God. He speaketh to us, 
As from the burning bush He spake to 
Moses ! 

JOHN. 

The cloud-wreaths roll away. The veil is 

lifted ; 
We see again. Behold ! He is alone. 
It was a vision that our eyes beheld, 
And it hath vanished into the unseen. 

CHRiSTUS, coming down from the mountain. 
I charge ye, tell the vision unto no one, 
Till the Son of Man be risen from the dead ! 

peter, aside. 
Again He speaks of it ! What can it mean, 
This rising from the dead ? 



Why say the Scribes 
Elias must first come ? 

CHRISTUS. 

He cometh first, 
Restoring all things. But I say to you, 
That this Elias is already come. 
They knew him not, but have done unto 

him 
Whate'er they listed, as is written of him. 

peter, aside. 
It is of John the Baptist He is speaking. 

JAMES. 

As we descend, see, at the mountain's foot, 
A crowd of people ; coming, going, throng- 
ing 
Round the disciples, that we left behind us, 
Seeming impatient, that we stay so long. 

PETER. 

It is some blind man, or some paralytic 
That waits the Master's coming to be 
healed. 

JAMES. 

I see a boy, who struggles and demeans him 
As if an unclean spirit tormented him ! 

A certain man, running forward. 
Lord ! I beseech thee, look upon my son. 
He is mine only child ; a lunatic, 
A.nd sorely vexed ; for oftentimes he falleth 



Into the fire and oft into the water. 

Wherever the dumb spirit taketh him 

He teareth him. He gnasheth with his 

teeth, 
And pines away. I spake to thy disciples 
That they should cast him out, and they 

could not. 

CHRISTUS. 

O faithless generation and perverse ! 
How long shall I be with you, and suffer 

you ? 
Bring thy son hither. 

BYSTANDERS. 

How the unclean spirit 
Seizes the boy, and tortures him with pain I 
He falleth to the ground and wallows, 

foaming ! 
He cannot live. 

CHRISTUS. 

How long is it ago 
Since this came unto him ? 

THE FATHER. 

Even of a child. 
Oh, have compassion on us, Lord, and help 

us, 
If thou canst help us. 

CHRISTUS. 

If thou canst believe 
For unto him that verily believeth, 
All things are possible. 



THE FATHER. 



Lord, I believe 



Help thou mine unbelief ! 



CHRISTUS. 

Dumb and deaf spirit, 
Come out of him, I charge thee, and no 

more 
Enter thou into him ! 

The boy utters a loud cry of pain, and then lies 
still. 

BYSTANDERS. 

How motionless 
He lieth there. No life is left in him. 
His eyes are like a blind man's, that see not. 
The boy is dead ! 

OTHERS. 

Behold ! the Master stoops, 



386 



CHRISTUS: A MYSTERY 



And takes him by the hand, and lifts him 

up. 
He is not dead. 

DISCIPLES. 

But one word from those lips, 
But one touch of that hand, and he is 

healed ! 
Ah, why could we not do it ? 

THE FATHER. 

My poor child ! 
Now thou art mine again. The unclean 

spirit 
Shall never more torment thee ! Look at 

me ! 
4peak unto me ! Say that thou knowest 

me ! 

disciples to christus, departing. 
Good Master, tell us, for what reason was it 
We could not cast him out ? 

CHRISTUS. 

Because of your unbelief ! 



VIII 
THE YOUNG RULER 

CHRISTUS. 

Two men went up into the temple to pray. 
The one was a self-righteous Pharisee, 
The other a Publican. And the Pharisee 
Stood and praved thus within himself ! O 

God, 
I thank thee I am not as other men, 
Extortioners, unjust, adulterers, 
Or even as this Publican. I fast 
Twice in the week, and also I give tithes 
Of all that I possess ! The Publican, 
Standing afar off, would not lift so much 
Even as his eyes to heaven, but smote his 

breast, 
Saying : God be merciful to me a sinner ! 
I tell you that this man went to his honse 
More justified than the other. Every one 
That doth exalt himself shall be abased, 
And he that humbleth himself shall be 

exalted ! 

Childrek, among themselves. 
Let us go nearer I He is telling stories ! 
Let us go listen to them. 



AN OLD JEW. 

Children, children I 
What are ye doing here ? Why do ye 

crowd us ? 
It was such little vagabonds as you, 
That followed Elisha, mocking him and 

crying : 
Go up, thou bald-head ! But the bears — 

the bears 
Came out of the wood, and tare them I 

a mother. 

Speak not thus I 
We brought them here, that He might lay 

his hands 
On them, and bless them. 

CHRISTUS. 

Suffer little children 
To come unto me, and forbid them not ; 
Of such is the kingdom of heaven ; and 

their angels 
Look always on my Father's face. 

Takes them in his arms and blesses them 






a young ruler, running. 

Good Master ! 
What good thing shall I do, that I may 

have 
Eternal life ? 

CHRISTUS. 

Why callest thou me good ? 
There is none good but one, and that is 

God. 
If thou wilt enter into life eternal, 
Keep the commandments. 

YOUNG RULER. 

Which of them 7 

CHRISTUS. 

Thou shalt not 
Commit adultery ; thou shalt not kill ; 
Thou shalt not steal ; thou shalt not bear 

false witness ; 
Honor thy father and thy mother ; and 

love 
Thy neighbor as thyself. 






YOUNG RULER. 

From my youth up 
All these things hav« I kept. What lack J 

yet? 



THE DIVINE TRAGEDY 



38; 



With what divine compassion in his eyes 
The Master looks upon this eager youth, 
As if He loved him ! 

CHRISTUS. 

Wouldst thou perfect be, 
Sell all thou hast, and give it to the poor, 
And come, take up thy cross, and follow me, 
And thou shalt have thy treasure in the 
heavens. 

JOHN. 

Behold, how sorrowful he turns away ! 

CHRISTUS. 

Children ! how hard it is for them that trust 
In riches to enter into the kingdom of God ! 
'T is easier for a camel to go through 
A needle's eye, than for the rich to enter 
The kingdom of God ! 

JOHN. 

Ah, who then can be saved ? 



With men this is indeed impossible, 
But unto God all things are possible ! 

PETER. 

Behold, we have left all, and followed thee. 
What shall we have therefor ? 



CHRISTUS. 



IX 



AT BETHANY 



Eternal life. 



Martha busy about household chairs, 
sitting at the feet of Christus. 



Mary 



MARTHA. 

She sitteth idly at the Master's feet, 

And troubles not herself with household 

cares. 
T is the old story. When a guest arrives 
She gives up all to be with him ; while I 
Must be the drudge, make ready the guest- 
chamber, 
Prepare the food, set everything in order, 
And see that naught is wanting in the house. 
She shows her love by words, and I by 
workc. 



MARY. 

Master ! when thou comest, it is always 
A Sabbath in the house. I cannot work ; 

1 must sit at thy feet ; must see thee, hear 

thee! 
I have a feeble, wayward, doubting heart 
Incapable of endurance or great thoughts, 
Striving for something that it cannot reach, 
Baffled and disappointed, wounded, hungry j 
And only when I hear thee am I happy, 
And only when I see thee am at peace ! 
Stronger than I, and wiser, and far better 
In every manner, is my sister Martha. 
Thou seest how well she orders everything 
To make thee welcome ; how she comes 

and goes, 
Careful and cumbered ever with much 

serving, 
While I but welcome thee with foolish 

words ! 
Whene'er thou speakest to me, I am 

happy ; 
When thou art silent, I am satisfied. 
Thy presence is enough. I ask no more. 
Only to be with thee, only to see thee, 
Sufficeth me. My heart is then at rest. 
I wonder I am worthy of so much. 



Lord, dost thou care not that my siste 

Mary 
Hath left me thus to wait on thee alone ? 
I pray thee, bid her help me. 

CHRISTUS. 

Martha, Martha, 
Careful and troubled about many things 
Art thou, and yet one thing alone is need- 
ful ! 
Thy sister Mary hath chosen that goo* 

part, 
Which never shall be taken away from he 



BORN BLIND 
A JEW. 

Who is this beggar blinking in the sun ? 
Is it not he who used to sit and beg 
By the Gate Beautiful ? 



ANOTHER. 



It is the same. 



388 



CHRISTUS: A MYSTERY 



It is not he, but like him, for that beggar 
Was blind from birth. It cannot be the 



THE BEGGAR. 



^sa, I am he. 



A JEW. 

How have thine eyes been opened ? 

THE BEGGAR. 

A man that is called Jesus made a clay 
And put it on mine eyes, and said to me : 
Go to Siloam's Pool and wash thyself. 
I went and washed, and I received my 
sight. 



Where is He? 

THE BEGGAR. 

I know not. 

PHARISEES. 

What is this crowd 
Gathered about a beggar ? What has hap- 
pened ? 

A JEW. 

Here is a man who hath been blind from 

birth, 
And now he sees. He says a man called 

Jesus 
Hath healed him. 



A JEW. 

How can a man that is a sinner do 
Such miracles ? 

PHARISEES. 

What dost thou say of him 
That hath restored thy sight ? 

THE BEGGAR. 

He is a Prophet 

A JEW. 

This is a wonderful story, but not true. 
A beggar's fiction. He was not born blind, 
And never has been blind ! 



Ask them. 



OTHERS. 

Here are his parents. 



Is this your son ? 

THE PARENTS. 






We know this is our son. 



Rabboni, yea ; 



As God liveth, the Nazarene ! 
How was this done ? 



THE BEGGAR. 



Rabboni, he put clay 
Upon mine eyes ; I washed, and now I 



PHARISEES. 

When did he this ? 

THE BEGGAR. 

Rabboni, yesterday. 

PHARISEES. 

f'he Sabbath day. This man is not of God 
Because he keepeth not the Sabbath day ! 



PHARISEES. 

Was he born blind ? 

THE PARENTS. 

He was born blind. 

PHARISEES. 

Then how doth he now see ? 

the parents, aside. 

What answer shall we make ? If we con- 
fess 

It was the Christ, we shall be driven forth 

Out of the Synagogue ! We know, Rab- 
boni, 

This is our son, and that he was born J 
blind ; 

But by what means he seeth, we know not, 

Or who his eyes hath opened, we know 
not. 

He is of age ; ask him ; we cannot say ; 

He shall speak for himself. 

PHARISEES. 

Give God the praise ! 
We know the man that healed thee is S 



THE DIVINE TRAGEDY 



389 



THE BEGGAR. 

Whether He be a sinner, I know not ; 
One thing I know ; that whereas I was 

blind, 
I now do see. 

PHARISEES. 

How opened he thine eyes ? 
What did he do ? 

THE BEGGAR. 

I have already told you. 
Ye did not hear : why would ye hear 

again ? 
Will ye be his disciples ? 

PHARISEES. 

God of Moses ! 

Are we demoniacs, are we halt or blind, 

Or palsy-stricken, or lepers, or the like, 

That we should join the Synagogue of 
Satan, 

And follow jugglers ? Thou art his dis- 
ciple, 

But we are disciples of Moses ; and we 
know 

That God spake unto Moses ; but this 
fellow, 

We know not whence he is ! 

THE BEGGAR. 

Why, herein is 
A marvellous thing ! Ye know not whence 

He is, 
Yet He hath opened mine eyes ! We know 

that God 
Heareth not sinners ; but if any man 
Doeth God's will, and is his worshipper, 
Him doth He hear. Oh, since the world 

began 
It was not heard that any man hath 

opened 
The eves of one that was born blind. If 

'He 
Were not of God, surely He could do no- 
thing ! 

PHARISEES. 

Thou, who wast altogether born in sins 
And in iniquities, dost thou teach us ? 
Away with thee out of the holy places, 
Thou reprobate, thou beggar, thou blas- 
phemer ! 

The Beggar is cast out. 



XI 



SIMON MAGUS AND HELEN OF TYRP 

On the house-top at End or. Night. A lighted 
Lantern on a table. 

SIMON. 

Swiff are the blessed Immortals to the 

mortal 
That perseveres ! So doth it stand re- 
corded 
In the divine Chaldeean Oracles 
Of Zoroaster, once Ezekiel's slave, 
Who in his native East betook himself 
To lonely meditation, and the writing 
On the dried skins of oxen the Twelve 

Books 
Of the Avesta and the Oracles ! 
Therefore I persevere ; and I have brought 

thee 
From the great city of Tyre, where men 

deride 
The things they comprehend not, to this 

plain 
Of Esdraelon, in the Hebrew tongue 
Called Armageddon, and this town of Endor, 
Where men believe ; where all the air is full 
Of marvellous traditions, and the Enchan- 
tress 
That summoned up the ghost of Samuel 
Is still remembered. Thou hast seen the 

land ; 
Is it not fair to look on ? 



Yet not so fair as Tyre. 



It is fair, 



smoN. 

Is not Mount Tabor 
As beautiful as Carrnel by the Sea ? 

HELEN. 

It is too silent and too solitary ; 

I miss the tumult of the streets ; the sound?- 

Of traffic, and the going to and fro 

Of people in gay attire, witn cloaks of 

purple, 
And gold and silver jewelry ! 



Invention* 
Of Ahriman, the spirit of the dark, 
The Evil Spirit ! 



39° 



CHRISTUS: A MYSTERY 



I regret the gossip 
Of friends and neighbors at the open door 
On summer nights. 

SIMON. 

An idle waste of time. 

HELEN. 

The singing and the dancing, the delight 
Of music and of motion. Woe is me, 
To give up all these pleasures, and to lead 
The life we lead ! 



Thou canst not raise thyself 
Up to the level of my higher thought, 
And though possessing thee, I still remain 
Apart from thee, and with thee, am alone 
In my high dreams. 



Happier was I in Tyre. 
Oh, I remember how the gallant ships 
Came sailing in, with ivory, gold, and silver, 
^.nd apes and peacocks ; and the singing 

sailors, 
^nd the gay captains with their silken 

dresses, 
Smelling of aloes, myrrh, and cinnamon ! 



But the dishonor, Helen ! Let the ships 
Of Tarshish howl for that ! 



And what dishonor ? 
Remember Rahab, and how she became 
The ancestress of the great Psalmist David ; 
And wherefore should not I, Helen of Tyre, 
Attain like honor ? 



Thou art Helen of Tyre, 
And hast been Helen of Troy, and hast 

been Rahab, 
The Queen of Sheba, and Semiramis, 
And Sara of seven husbands, and Jezebel, 
And other women of the like allurements ; 
And now thou art Minerva, the first iEon, 
The Mother of Angels ! 

HELEN. 

And the concubine 
Of Simon the Magician J Is it honor 



For one who has been all these noble dames, 
To tramp about the dirty villages 
And cities of Samaria with a juggler ? 
A charmer of serpents ? 

SIMON. 

He who knows himself 
Knows all things in himself. I have 

charmed thee, 
Thou beautiful asp : yet am I no magician. 
I am the Power of God, and the Beauty of 

God ! 
I am the Paraclete, the Comforter ! 

HELEN. 

Illusions ! Thou deceiver, self-deceived 1 
Thou dost usurp the titles of another ; 
Thou art not what thou sayest. 






SIMON. 



Then feel my power. 



Am I not ? 



HELEN. 

Would I had ne'er left Tyre ! 
He looks at her, and she sinks into a deep sleep. 

SIMON. 

Go, see it in thy dreams, fair unbeliever ! 
And leave me unto mine, if they be dreams, 
That take such shapes before me, that I see 

them ; 
These effable and ineffable impressions 
Of the mysterious world, that come to me 
From the elements of Fire and Earth and 

Water, 
And the all-nourishing Ether ! It is written, 
Look not on Nature, for her name is fatal ! 
Yet there are Principles, that make ap- 
parent 
The images of unapparent things, 
And the impression of vague characters 
And visions most divine appear in ether. 
So speak the Oracles ; then wherefore 

fatal? 
I take this orange-bough, with its five 

leaves, 
Each equidistant on the upright stem ; 
And I project them on a plane below, 
In the circumference of a circle drawn 
About a centre where the stem is planted, 
And each still equidistant from the other ; 
As if a thread of gossamer were drawn 
Down from each leaf, and fastened with a 
7>in. 



THE DIVINE TRAGEDY 



39i 



Now if from these five points a line be 

traced 
To each alternate point, we shall obtain 
The Pentagram, or Solomon's Pentangle, 
A charm against all witchcraft, and a sign, 
Which on the banner of Antiochus 
Drove back the fierce barbarians of the 

North, 
Demons esteemed, and gave the Syrian 

King 
The sacred name of Soter, or of Savior. 
Thus Nature works mysteriously with 

man ; 
And from the Eternal One, as from a 

centre, 
All things proceed, in fire, air, earth, and 

water, 
And all are subject to one law, which 

broken 
Even in a single point, is broken in all ; 
Demons rush in, and chaos comes again. 

By this will I compel the stubborn spirits, 
That guard the treasures, hid in caverns 

deep 
On Gerizim, by Uzzi the High-Priest, 
The ark and holy vessels, to reveal 
Their secret unto me, and to restore 
These precious things to the Samaritans. 
A mist is rising from the plain below me, 
And as I look, the vapors shape themselves 
Into strange figures, as if unawares 
My lips had breathed the Tetragrammaton, 
And from their graves, o'er all the battle- 
fields 
Of Armageddon, the long-buried captains 
Had started, with their thousands, and ten 

thousands, 
And rushed together to renew their wars, 
Powerless, and weaponless, and without a 

sound ! 
Wake, Helen, from thy sleep ! The air 

grows cold ; 
T^et us go down. 

HELEN, awaking. 
Oh, would I were at home ! 



Thou sayest that I usurp another's titles. 
In youth I saw the Wise Men of the East, 
Magalath and Pangalath and Saracen, 
Who followed the bright star, but home 

returned 
For fear of Herod by another way. 



Oh shining worlds above me ! in what deep 

Recesses of your realms of mystery 

Lies hidden now that star ? and where are 

they 
That brought the gifts of frankincense and 

myrrh ? 

HELEN. 

The Nazarene still liveth. 

SIMON. 

We have heard 
His name in many towns, but have not 

seen Him. 
He flits before us ; tarries not ; is gone 
When we approach, like something unsub- 
stantial, 
Made of the air, and fading into air. 
He is at Nazareth, He is at Nain, 
Or at the Lovely Village on the Lake, 
Or sailing on its waters. 

HELEN. 

So say those 
Who do not wish to find Him. 

SIMON. 

Can this bt 
The King of Israel, whom the Wise Men. 

worshipped ? 
Or does He fear to meet me ? It would 

seem so. 
We should soon learn which of us twain 

usurps 
The titles of the other, as thou sayest. 
They go down. 



THE THIRD PASSOVER 



THE ENTRY INTO JERUSALEM 

The Stro - Phoenician Woman and her 
Daughter on the house-top at Jerusalem. 

the daughter, singing. 
Blind Bartimeus at the gates 
Of Jericho in darkness waits ; 
He hears the crowd ; — he hears a breati 
Say, It is Christ of Nazareth ! 
And calls, in tones of agony, 
'frjaoD, 4\47)(r6v pel 

The thronging multitudes increase : 
Blind Bartimeus, hold thy peace ! 



392 



CHRISTUS: A MYSTERY 



But still, above the noisy crowd, 
The beggar's cry is shrill and loud ; 
Until they say, He calleth thee ! 
®dpaei ' Hyeipai, <pu>vei o~6 ! 

Then saith the Christ, as silent stands 
The crowd, What wilt thou at my hands ? 
And he replies, Oh, give me light ! 
Rabbi, restore the blind man's sight ! 
And Jesus answers, "tiraye • 
'H Triaris gov asawite ae ! 

Ye that have eyes, yet cannot see, 
In darkness and in misery, 
Recall those mighty voices three, 
'lycrov, iXerjaov fxe ! 
Qdpasi ' eyeipai, viraye ! 
*H Triaris crov oiaoeni as ! 



THE MOTHER. 

Thy faith hath saved thee ! Ah, how true 

that is ! 
For I had faith ; and when the Master 

came 
Into the coasts of Tyre and Sidon, fleeing 
From those who sought to slay Him, I went 

forth 
And cried unto Him, saying : Have mercy 

on me, 

Lord, thou Son of David ! for my 

daughter 
Is grievously tormented with a devil. 
But He passed on, and answered not a word. 
And his disciples said, beseeching Him : 
Send her away ! She crieth after us ! 
And then the Master answered them and 

said : 

1 am not sent but unto the lost sheep 

Of the House of Israel ! Then I wor- 
shipped Him, 

Saying : Lord, help me ! And He an- 
swered me, 

It is not meet to take the children's bread 

And cast it unto dogs ! Truth, Lord, I said ; 

And yet the dogs may eat the crumbs 
which fall 

From off their master's table ; and He 
turned, 

And answered me ; and said to me : O 
woman, 

Great is thy faith ; then be it unto thee 

Even as thou wilt. And from that very 
hour 

Thou wast made whole, my darling ! my 
delight ! 



THE DAUGHTER. 

There came upon my dark and troubled 

mind 
A calm, as when the tumult of the city 
Suddenly ceases, and I lie and hear 
The silver trumpets of the Temple blowing 
Their welcome to the Sabbath. Still 1 

wonder, 
That one who was so far away from me, 
And could not see me, by his thought alone 
Had power to heal me. Oh that I could see 

Him! 

THE MOTHER. 

Perhaps thou wilt ; for I have brought 

thee here 
To keep the holy Passover, and lay 
Thine offering of thanksgiving on the altar. 
Thou mayst both see and hear Him. 

Hark ! 

voices afar off'. 
Hosanna ! 

THE DAUGHTER. 

A crowd comes pouring through the city 

gate ! 
O mother, look ! 



Of David ! 



voices in the street. 

Hosanna to the Sou 



THE DAUGHTER. 

A great multitude of people 
Fills all the street ; and riding on an ass 
Comes one of noble aspect, like a king ! 
The people spread their garments in thfi 

way, 
And scatter branches of the palm-trees ! 

VOICES. 

Blesse 
Is He that cometh in the name of the 

Lord ! 
Hosanna in the highest ! 



OTHER VOICES. 



Who is this ? 



VOICES. 

Jesus of Nazareth I 



THE DAUGHTER. 

Mother, it is He ! 



THE DIVINE TRAGEDY 



393 



VOICES. 

He hath called Lazarus of Bethany 

Out of his grave, and raised him from the 

dead ! 
Hosaima in the highest ! 

PHARISEES. 

Ye perceive 
That nothing we prevail. Behold, the 

world 
Is all gone after him ! 

THE DAUGHTER. 

What majesty, 
What power is in that care-worn counte- 
nance ! 
What sweetness, what compassion ! I no 

longer 
Wonder that He hath healed me ! 



VOICES. 

And glory in the highest ! 

PHARISEES. 

Rebuke thy followers ! 



Peace in heaven, 



Rabbi ! Rabbi ! 



CHRISTUS. 

Should they hold their peace 
The very stones beneath us would cry 
out! 

THE DAUGHTER. 

All hath passed by me like a dream of won- 
der ! 

But I have seen Him, and have heard his 
voice, 

And I am satisfied ! I ask no more ! 



II 



SOLOMON'S PORCH 

GAMALIEL THE SCRIBE. 

When Rabban Simeon, upon whom be 
peace ! 

Taught in these Schools, he boasted that 
his pen 

Had written no word that he could call his 
own, 

But wholly and always had been conse- 
crated 



To the transcribing of the Law and Pro- 
phets. 
He used to say, and never tired of saying, 
The world itself was built upon the Law. 
And ancient Hillel said, that whosoever 
Gains a good name, gains something for 

himself, 
But he who gains a knowledge of the Law 
Gains everlasting life. And they spake 

truly. 
Great is the Written Law ; but greater still 
The Unwritten, the Traditions of the 

Elders, 
The lovely words of Levites, spoken first 
To Moses on the Mount, and handed down 
From mouth to mouth, in one unbroken 

sound 
And sequence of divine authority, 
The voice of God resounding through the 
ages. 

The Written Law is water ; the Unwritten 
Is precious wine ; the Written Law is salt, 
The Unwritten costly spice ; the Written 

Law 
Is but the body ; the Unwritten, the soul 
That quickens it and makes it breathe and 

live. 
I can remember, many years ago, 
A little bright-eyed school-boy, a mere 

stripling, 
Son of a Galilean carpenter, 
From Nazareth. I think, who came one day 
And sat here in the Temple with the Scribes, 
Hearing us speak, and asking many ques- 
tions, 
And we were all astonished at his quickness. 
And when his mother came, and said : Be- 
hold 
Thy father and I have sought thee, sorrow- 
ing ; 
He looked as one astonished, and made an- 
swer, 
How is it that ye sought me ? Wist ye not 
That I must be about my Father's busi- 
ness ? 
Often since then I see him here among us, 
Or dream I see him, with his upraised face 
Intent and eager, and I often wonder 
Unto what manner of manhood he hath 

grown ! 
Perhaps a poor mechanic, like his father, 
Lost in his little Galilean village 
And toiling at his craft, to die unknown 
And be no more remembered among men 



394 



CHRISTUS: A MYSTERY 



CHRISTUS in the outer court 
The Scribes and Pharisees sit in Moses' 

seat ; 
411, therefore, whatsoever they command 

you, 
Observe and do ; but follow not their 

works ; 
They say and do not. They bind heavy 

burdens 
And very grievous to be borne, and lay 

them 
Upon men's shoulders, but they move them 

not 
With so much as a finger ! 

Gamaliel, looking forth. 

Who is this 
Exhorting in the outer courts so loudly ? 

CHRISTUS. 

Their works they do for to be seen of men. 
They make broad their phylacteries, and 

enlarge 
The borders of their garments, and they 

love 
The uppermost rooms at feasts, and the 

chief seats 
In Synagogues, and greetings in the 

markets, 
And to be called of all men Rabbi, Rabbi ! 

GAMALIEL. 

1 1 is that loud and turbulent Galilean, 
That came here at the Feast of Dedication, 
And stirred the people up to break the 
Law ! 

CHRISTUS. 

Woe unto you, ye Scribes and Pharisees, 
Ye hypocrites ! for ye shut up the kingdom 
Of heaven, and neither go ye in yourselves 
Nor suffer them that are entering to go in ! 

GAMALIEL. 

How eagerly the people throng and listen, 
As if his ribald words were words of wis- 
dom ! 

CHRISTUS. 

Woe unto you, ye Scribes and Pharisees, 
Ye hypocrites ! for ye devour the houses 
Of widows, and for pretence ye make long 

prayers; 
Therefore shall ye receive the more dam- 
nation. 



GAMALIEL. 

This brawler is no Jew, — he is a vile 
Samaritan, and hath an unclean spirit ! 

CHRISTUS. 

Woe unto you, ye Scribes and Pharisees, 
Ye hypocrites ! ye compass sea and land 
To make one proselyte, and when he is matte 
Ye make him twofold more the child of 

hell 
Than you yourselves are ! 

GAMALIEL. 

O my father's father ! 
Hillel of blessed memory, hear and judge ,' 

CHRISTUS. 

Woe unto you, ye Scribes and Pharisees, 
Ye hypocrites ! for ye pay tithe of mint, 
Of anise, and of cumin, and omit 
The weightier matters of the law of God, 
Judgment and faith and mercy ; and all 

these 
Ye ought to have done, nor leave undone 

the others ! 

GAMALIEL. 

O Rabban Simeon ! how must thy bones 
Stir in their grave to hear such blas- 
phemies ! 

CHRISTUS. 

Woe unto you, ye Scribes and Pharisees, 
Ye hypocrites ! for ye make clean and 

sweet 
The outside of the cup and of the platter, 
But they within are full of all excess ! 

GAMALIEL. 

Patience of God ! canst thou endure so 

long? 
Or art thou deaf, or gone upon a journey 7 

CHRISTUS. 

Woe unto you, ye Scribes and Pharisees, 
Ye hypocrites ! for ye are very like 
To whited sepulchres, which indeed appeal 
Beautiful outwardty, but are within 
Filled full of dead men's bones and all un* 
cleanness I 

GAMALIEL. 

Am I awake ? Is this Jerusalem ? 
And are these Jews that throng and stare 
and listen ? 



THE DIVINE TRAGEDY 



395 



CHRISTUS. 

Woe unto you, ye Scribes and Pharisees, 
Ye hypocrites ! because ye build the tombs 
Of prophets, and adorn the sepulchres 
Of righteous men, and say : If we had 

lived 
When lived our fathers, we would not have 

been 
Partakers with them in the blood of Pro- 
phets. 
So ye be witnesses unto yourselves, 
That ye are children of them that killed the 

Prophets ! 
Fill ye up then the measure of your fathers. 
I send unto you Prophets and Wise Men, 
And Scribes, and some ye crucify, and 

some 
Scourge in your Synagogues, and perse- 
cute 
From city to city ; that on you may come 
The righteous blood that hath been shed on 

earth, 
From the blood of righteous Abel to the 

blood 
Of Zacharias, son of Barachias, 
Ye slew between the Temple and the altar ! 

GAMALIEL. 

Oh, had I here my subtle dialectician, 
My little Saul of Tarsus, the tent-maker, 
Whose wit is sharper than his needle's 

point, 
He would delight to foil this noisy wran- 
gler ! 

CHRISTUS. 

Jerusalem ! Jerusalem ! O thou 

That killest the Prophets, and that stonest 

them 
Which are sent unto thee, how often would I 
Have gathered together thy children, as a 

hen 
Gathereth her chickens underneath her 

wing, 
And ye would not ! Behold, your house is 

left 
Unto you desolate ! 

THE PEOPLE. 

This is a Prophet ! 
This is the Christ that was to come ! 

GAMALIEL. 

Ye fools ! 
think ye, shall Christ come out of Galilee ? 



Ill 
LORD, IS IT I? 

CHRISTUS. 

One of you shall betray me. 

THE DISCIPLES. 



Lord, is it I ? 



Is it It 



CHRISTUS. 

One of the Twelve it is 
That dippeth with me in this dish his hand , 
He shall betray me. Lo, the Son of Man 
Goeth indeed as it is written of Him ; 
But woe shall be unto that man by whom 
He is betrayed ! Good were it for that 

man 
If he had ne'er been born ! 

JUDAS ISCARIOT. 

Lord, is it I \ 

CHRISTUS. 

Ay, thou hast said. And that thou doest, 
do quickly. 

Judas iscariot, going out. 
Ah, woe is me ! 

CHRISTUS. 

All ye shall be offended 
Because of me this night ; for it is written : 
Awake, O sword against my shepherd I 

Smite 
The shepherd, saith the Lord of hosts, and 

scattered 
Shall be the sheep ! — But after I am 

risen 
I go before you into Galilee. 



Master ! though all men shall be of 

fended 
Because of thee, yet will not I be ! 

CHRISTUS. 

Simon, 
Behold how Satan hath desired to have you, 
That he may sift you as one sifteth wheat f 
Whither I go thou canst not follow me — 
Not now ; but thou shalt follow me here 
after. 



396 



CHRISTUS : A MYSTERY 



PETER. 

Wherefore can I not follow thee ? I am 

ready 
To go with thee to prison and to death. 

CHRISTUS. 

Verily say I nnto thee, this night, 
Ere the cock crow, thou shalt deny me 
thrice ! 

PETER. 

Though I should die, yet will I not deny 
thee. 

CHRISTUS. 

When first I sent you forth without a 

purse, 
Or scrip, or shoes, did ye lack anything ? 



Not anything. 



THE DISCIPLES. 



CHRISTUS. 



But he that hath a purse, 
Now let him take it, and likewise his 

scrip ; 
And he that hath no sword, let him go sell 
His clothes and buy one. That which hath 

been written 
Must be accomplished now : He hath 

poured out 
His soul even unto death ; he hath been 

numbered 
With the transgressors, and himself hath 

borne 
The sin of many, and made intercession 
For the transgressors. And here have an 

end 
The things concerning me. 



Behold, O Lord, 
Behold, here are two swords ! 



It is enough. 



IV 



THE GARDEN OF GETHSEMANE 

CHRIST OS. 

My spirit is exceeding sorrowful 
Even unto death ! Tarry ye here and 
watch. 

He goes apartt 



PETER. 

Under this ancient olive-tree, that spreads 
Its broad centennial branches like a tent, 
Let us lie down and rest. 

JOHN. 

What are those torches, 
That glimmer on Brook Kedron there 
below us ? 



It is some marriage feast ; the joyful maid= 

ens 
Go out to meet the bridegroom. 

PETER. 

I am weary. 
The struggles of this day have overcome 
me. 

They sleep. 

christus, falling on his face. 

Father ! all things are possible to thee, — 

Oh let this cup pass from me ! Neverthe- 
less 

Not as I will, but as thou wilt, be done ! 
Returning to the Disciples. 

What ! could ye not watch with me for one 
hour ? 

Oh watch and pray, that ye may enter not 

Into temptation. For the spirit indeed 

Is willing, but the flesh is weak ! 

JOHN. 

Alas! 
It is for sorrow that our eyes arc heavy. — 
I see again the glimmer of those torches 
Among the olives ; they are coming hither 

JAMES. 

Outside the garden wall the path divides \ 
Surely they come not hither. 
They sleep again. 

christus, as before. 

O my Father \ 
If this cup may not pass away from me, 
Except I drink of it, thy will be done. 

Returning to the Disciples. 
Sleep on ; and take your rest ! 

JOHN. 

Beloved Master, 
Alas ! we know not what to answer thee ! 
It is for sorrow that our eyes are heavy. — * 
Behold, the torches now encompass us. 



THE DIVINE TRAGEDY 



39) 



Thoy do but go about the garden wall, 
Seeking for some one, or for something lost. 

They sleep again. 

CHRisxus, as before. 
If this cup may not pass away from me, 
Except I drink of it, thy will be done. 

Returning to the Disciples. 
It is enough ! Behold, the Son of Man 
Hath been betrayed into the hands of sin- 
ners ! 
The hour is come. Rise up, let us be go- 
ing ; 
For he that shall betray me is at hand. 



Ah me ! See, from his forehead, in the 

torchlight, 
Great drops of blood are falling to the 

ground ! 

PETER. 

What lights are these ? What torches 

glare and glisten 
Upon the swords and armor of these men ? 
And there among them Judas Iscariot ! 

He smites the servant of the High-Priest with his 
sword. 

CHRISTUS. 

Put up thy sword into its sheath ; for they 
That take the sword shall perish with the 

sword. 
The cup my Father hath given me to drink, 
Shall I not drink it ? Think'st thou that 

I cannot 
Pray to my Father, and that He shall give 

me 
More than twelve legions of angels pres- 
ently ? 

judas to christus, kissing him. 
Hail, Master ! hail ! 

CHRISTUS. 

Friend, wherefore art thou come ? 
Whom seek ye ? 

CAPTAIN OF THE TEMPLE. 

Jesus of Nazareth. 



I am he. 
Are ye come hither as against a thief, 



With swords and staves to take me 1 

When I daily 
Was with you in the Temple, ye stretched 

forth 
No hands to take me ! But this is your 

hour, 
And this the power of darkness. If ye 

seek 
Me only, let these others go their way. 
The Disciples depart. Christus is bound and 
led away. _ A certain young man follows Him, 
having a linen cloth cast about his body. They 
lay hold of him, and the young man flees from 
them naked. 



THE PALACE OF CAIAPHAS 

PHARISEES. 

What do we ? Clearly something must 

we do, 
For this man worketh many miracles. 

CAIAPHAS. 

I am informed that he is a mechanic ; 
A carpenter's son ; a Galilean peasant, 
Keeping disreputable company. 

PHARISEES. 

The people say that here in Bethany 
He hath raised up a certain Lazarus, 
Who had been dead three days. 

CAIAPHAS. 

Impossible ! 
There is no resurrection of the dead ; 
This Lazarus should be taken, and put t( 

death 
As an impostor. If this Galilean 
Would be content to stay in Galilee, 
And preach in country towns, I should not 

heed him. 
But when he comes up to Jerusalem 
Riding in triumph, as I am informed, 
And drives the money-changers from the 

Temple, 
That is another matter. 

PHARISEES. 

If we thus 
Let him alone, all will believe on him, 
And then the Romans come and take 

away 
Our place and nation. 



39* 



CHRISTUS: A MYSTERY 



CAIAPHAS. 

Ye know nothing at all. 
Simon Ben Camith, my great predecessor, 
On whom be peace ! would have dealt 

presently 
With such a demagogue. I shall no less. 
The man must die. Do ye consider not 
It is expedient that one man should die, 
Not the whole nation perish ? What is 

death ? 
It differeth from sleep but in duration. 
We sleep and wake again ; an hour or two 
Later or earlier, and it matters not, 
And if we never wake it matters not ; 
Whet we are in our graves we are at peace, 
Nothing can wake us or disturb us more. 
There is no resurrection, 

Pharisees, aside. 

O most faithful 
Disciple of Hircanus Maccabaeus, 
Will nothing but complete annihilation 
Comfort and satisfy thee ? 

CAIAPHAS. 

While ye are talking 
And plotting, and contriving how to take 

him, 
Fearing the people, and so doing naught, 
I, who fear not the people, have been act- 
ing ; 
Have taken this Prophet, this young Naza- 

rene, 
Who by Beelzebub the Prince of devils 
Casteth out devils, and doth raise the dead, 
That might as well be dead, and left in 

peace. 
Annas my father-in-law hath sent him 

hither. 
I hear the guard. Behold your Galilean ! 
Christus is brought in bound. 

servant, in the vestibule. 
Why art thou up so late, my pretty damsel ? 

DAMSEL. 

Why art thou up so early, pretty man ? 
It is not cock-crow yet, and art thou stir- 
ring ? 

SERVANT. 

What brings thee here ? 

DAMSEL. 

What brings the rest of you ? 



SERVANT. 

Come here and warm thy hands. 

DAMSEL to PETER. 

Art thou not al*" 
One of this man's disciples ? 

PETER. 

I am not. 

DAMSEL. 

Now surely thou art also one of them ; 
Thou art a Galilean, and thy speech 
Bewrayeth thee. 

PETER. 

Woman, I know him not ! 

caiaphas to christus, in the Hall. 
Who art thou ? Tell us plainly of thyself 
And of thy doctrines, and of thy disciples. 

CHRISTUS. 

Lo, I have spoke n openly to the world, 
I have taught ever in the Synagogue, 
And in the Temple, where the Jews resort 
In secret have said nothing. Wherefore 

then 
Askest thou me of this ? Ask them that 

heard me 
What 1 have said to them. Behold, they 

know 
What I have said ! 

officer, striking him. 
What, fellow ! answerest thou 
The High-Priest so ? 

CHRISTUS. 

If I have spoken evil, 
Bear witness of the evil ; but if well, 
Why smitest thou me ? 

CAIAPHAS. 

Where are the witnesses ' 
Let them say what they know. 

THE TWO FALSE WITNESSES. 

We heard him say ; 
I will destroy this Temple made with hands, 
And will within three days build up anothel 
Made without hands. 

scribes and Pharisees. 
He is o'erwhelmed with sham? 
And cannot answer ! 



THE DIVINE TRAGEDY 



395 



CAIAPHAS. 

Dost thou answer nothing ? 
What is this thing they witness here against 
thee? 

scribes and Pharisees. 
He holds his peace. 

CAIAPHAS. 

Tell us, art thou the Christ ? 
I do adjure thee by the living God, 
Tell us, art thou indeed the Christ ? 

CHRISTDS. 

I am. 
Hereafter shall ye see the Son of Man 
Sit on the right hand of the power of God, 
And come in clouds of heaven ! 

CAIAPHAS, rending his clothes. 

It is enough. 
He hath spoken blasphemy ! What further 

need 
Have we of witnesses ? Now ye have heard 
His blasphemy. What think ye? Is he 
guilty ? 

scribes and Pharisees. 
Guilty of death ! 

kinsman of malchus to peter, in the vestibule. 

Surely I know thy face, 

Did I not see thee in the garden with him ? 

PETER. 

How couldst thou see me ? I swear unto 

thee 
I do not know this man of whom ye speak ! 

The cock crows. 
Hark ! the cock crows ! That sorrowful, 

pale face 
Seeks for me in the crowd, and looks at me, 
As if He would remind me of those words : 
Ere the cock crow thou shalt deny me 

thrice ! 
Goes out weeping. Christtjs is blindfolded and 
buffeted. 

AN officer, striking him with his palm. 
Prophesy unto us, thou Christ, thou 

Prophet 1 
Who is it smote thee ? 

CAIAPHAS. 

Lead him unto Pilate 1 



VI 



PONTIUS PILATE 



PILATE. 

Wholly incomprehensible to me, 
Vainglorious, obstinate, and given up 
To unintelligible old traditions, 
And proud, and self-conceited are thes« 

Jews ! 
Not long ago, I marched the legions down 
From Csesarea to their winter-quarters 
Here in Jerusalem, with the effigies 
Of Csesar on their ensigns, and a tumult 
Arose among these Jews, because their 

Law 
Forbids the making of all images ! 
They threw themselves upon the ground 

with wild 
Expostulations, bared their necks, and 

cried 
That they would sooner die than have their 

Law 
Infringed in any manner ; as if Numa 
W T ere not as great as Moses, and the Laws 
Of the Twelve Tables as their Pentateuch I 

And then, again, when I desired to span 
Their valley with an aqueduct, and bring 
A rushing river in to wash the city 
And its inhabitants, — they all rebelled 
As if they had been herds of unwashed 

swine ! 
Thousands and thousands of them got 

together 
And raised so great a clamor round my 

doors, 
That, fearing violent outbreak, I desisted, 
And left them to their wallowing in the 



And now here comes the reverend Sanhe- 
drim 
Of lawyers, priests, and Scribes and Phari- 
sees, 
Like old and toothless mastiffs, that can 

bark 
But cannot bite, howling their accusations 
Against a mild enthusiast, who hath 

preached 
I know not what new doctrine, being King 
Of some vague kingdom in the other world, 
That hath no more to do with Rome and 
Csesar 



400 



CHRISTUS: A MYSTERY 



Than I have with the patriarch Abra- 
ham ! 

Finding this man to be a Galilean 

I sent him straight to Herod, and I hope 

That is the last of it ; but if it be not, 

I still have power to pardon and release 

him, 
As is the custom at the Passover, 
And so accommodate the matter smoothly, 
Seeming to yield to them, yet saving him ; 
A prudent and sagacious policy 
For Roman Governors in the Provinces. 

Incomprehensible, fanatic people ! 

Ye have a God, who seemeth like your- 
selves 

Incomprehensible, dwelling apart, 

Majestic, cloud - encompassed, clothed in 
darkness ! 

One whom ye fear, but love not ; yet ye 
have 

No Goddesses to soften your stern lives, 

And make you tender unto human weak- 
ness, 

While we of Rome have everywhere 
around us 

Our amiable divinities, that haunt 

The woodlands, and the waters, and fre- 
quent 

9nr households, with their sweet and 
gracious presence ! 

I will go in, and while these Jews are 
wrangling, 

Read my Ovidius on the Art of Love. 



VII 
BARABBAS IN PRISON 

barabbas, to his fellow-prisoners. 
Barabbas is my name, 
Barabbas, the Son of Shame, 

Is the meaning I suppose ; 
I 'm no better than the best, 
And whether worse than the rest 

Of my fellow-men, who knows ? 

I was once, to say it in brief, 
A highwayman, a robber-chief, 

In the open light of day. 
So much I am free to confess ; 
But all men, more or less, 

Are robbers in their way. 



From my cavern in the crags, 
From my lair of leaves and flags, 

I could see, like ants, below, 
The camels with their load 
Of merchandise, on the road 

That leadeth to Jericho. 

And I struck them unaware, 
As an eagle from the air 

Drops down upon bird or beast ; 
And I had my heart's desire 
Of the merchants of Sid on and Tyre, 

And Damascus and the East. 

But it is not for that I fear ; 
It is not for that I am here 

In these iron fetters bound ; 
Sedition ! that is the word 
That Pontius Pilate heard, 

And he liketh not the sound. 

What think ye, would he care 
For a Jew slain here or there, 

Or a plundered caravan ? 
But Caesar ! — ah, that is a crime p 
To the uttermost end of time 

Shall not be forgiven to man. 

Therefore was Herod wroth 
With Matthias Margaloth, 

And burned him for a show i 
Therefore his wrath did smite 
Judas the Gaulonite, 

And his followers, as ye know* 

For that cause and no more, 
Am I here, as I said before ; 

For one unlucky night, 
Jucundus, the captain of horse, 
Was upon us with all his force, 

And I was caught in the fight. 

I might have fled with the rest, 
But my dagger was in the breast 

Of a Roman equerry ; 
As we rolled there in the street, 
They bound me, hands and feet ; 

And this is the end of me. 

Who cares for death ? Not I ! 
A thousand times I would die, 

Rather than suffer wrong ! 
Already those women of mine 
Are mixing the myrrh and the wine: 

I shall not be with you long. 



THE DIVINE TRAGEDY 



4or 





How shall I save him ? Yet one effort 


VIII 


more, 




Or he must perish ! 


ECCE HOMO 


Washes his hands before them. 




I am innocent 


PILATE, on the tessellated pavement in front of 
his palace. 


Of the blood of this just person ; see ye to 

it! 


Ye have brought unto me this man, as 




one 


THE people. 


Who doth pervert the people ; and be- 


Let his blood be on us and on our children t 


hold ! 




I have examined him, and found no fault 


voices, within the palace. 


Touching the things whereof ye do accuse 


Put on thy royal robes ; put on thy crown, 


him. 


And take thy sceptre ! Hail, thou King of 


No, nor yet Herod ; for I sent you to him, 


the Jews ! 


And nothing worthy of death he findeth in 




him. 


PILATE. 


Ye have a custom at the Passover, 


I bring him forth to you, that ye may know 


That one condemned to death shall be re- 


I find no fault in him. Behold the man ! 


leased. 


Christus is led in with the purple robe and crown 


Whom will ye, then, that I release to you ? 


of thorns. 


Jesus Barabbas, called the Son of Shame, 




Br Jesus, Son of Joseph, called the Christ ? 


chief priests and OFFICERS. 




Crucify him ! crucify him ! 


the people, shouting. 




Not this man, but Barabbas ! 


PILATE. 




Take ye him ; 


PILATE. 


I find no fault in him. 


What then will ye 




That 1 should do with him that is called 


CHIEF PRIESTS. 


Christ ? 


We have a Law, 




And by our Law he ought to die ; because 


THE PEOPLE. 


He made himself to be the Son of God. 


Crucify him ! 






pilate, aside. 


PILATE. 


Ah ! there are Sons of God, and demi-godsi 


Why, what evil hath he done ? 


More than ye know, ye ignorant High 


Lo, I have found no cause of death in him ; 


Priests ! 


I will chastise him, and then let him go. 






To christus. 


the people, more vehemently. 


Whence art thou ? 


Crucify him ! crucify him ! 






CHIEF PRIESTS. 


A MESSENGER, to PILATE. 


Crucify him ! crucify him S 


Thy wife sends 




This message to thee, — Have thou naught 


PILATE, to CHRISTUS. 


to do 


Dost thou not answer me ? Dost thou not 


With that just man ; for I this day in 


know 


dreams 


That I have power enough to crucify thee ? 


Have suffered many things because of him. 


That I have also power to set thee free ? 


Pilate, aside. 


CHRISTUS. 


The Gods speak to us in our dreams ! I 


Thou couldest have no power at all against 


tremble 


me 


At what I have to do ! Claudia, 


Except that it were given thee from above J 



402 



CHRISTUS: A MYSTERY 



Therefore hath he that sent me unto thee 
The greater sin. 

CHIEF PRIESTS. 

If thou let this man go, 
Thou art not Caesar's friend. For whoso- 
ever 
Maketh himself a King, speaks against 
Caesar. 

PILATE. 

Ye Jews, behold your King ! 

CHIEF PRIESTS. 

Away with him ! 



Crucify him ! 



PILATE. 

Shall I crucify your King ? 



CHIEF PRIESTS. 

We have no King but Caesar ! 

PILATE. 

Take him, then, 
Take him, ye cruel and bloodthirsty Priests, 
More merciless than the plebeian mob, 
Who pity and spare the fainting gladi- 
ator 
Blood-stained in Roman amphitheatres, — 
Take him, and crucify him if ye will ; 
But if the immortal Gods do ever min- 
gle 
With the affairs of mortals, which I doubt 

not, 
And hold the attribute of justice dear, 
They will commission the Eumenides 
To scatter you to the four winds of 

heaven, 
Exacting tear for tear, and blood for 

blood. 
Here, take ye this inscription, Priests, and 

nail it 
Upon the cross, above your victim's head : 
Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews. 

CHIEF PRIESTS. 

Nay, we entreat ! write not, the King of 

the Jews ; 
But that he said : I am the King of the 

Jews ! 

PILATE. 

Enough. What I have written, I have 
written. 



IX 

ACELDAMA 

JUDAS ISCARIOT. 

Lost ! lost ! Forever lost ! I have betrayect 
The innocent blood ! O God ! if thou art 

love, 
Why didst thou leave me naked to the 

tempter ? 
Why didst thou not commission thy swift 

lightning 
To strike me dead ? or why did I not per- 
ish 
With those by Herod slain, the innocent 

children 
Who went with playthings in their little 

hands 
Into the darkness of the other world, 
As if to bed ? Or wherefore was I born, 
If thou in thy foreknowledge didst perceive 
All that I am, and all that I must be ? 
I know I am not generous, am not gentle, 
Like other men ; but I have tried to be, 
And I have failed. I thought by following 

Him 
I should grow like Him ; but the unclean 

spirit 
That from my childhood up hath tortured 

me 
Hath been too cunning and too strong for 

me. 
Am I to blame for this ? Am I to blame 
Because I cannot love, and ne'er have 

known 
The love of woman or the love of chil- 
dren ? 
It is a curse and a fatality, 
A mark, that hath been set upon my fore* 

head, 
That none shall slay me, for it were a 

mercy 
That I were dead, or never had been born. 

Too late ! too late ! I shall not see Him 

more 
Among the living. That sweet, patient 

face 
Will never more rebuke me, nor those 

lips 
Repeat the words : One of you shall betray 

me ! 
It stung me into madness. How I loved, 
Yet hated Him 1 But in the other world 1 



THE DIVINE TRAGEDY 



403 



I will be there before Him, and will wait 
Until he comes, and fall down on my 

knees 
And kiss his feet, imploring pardon, par- 
don ! 

I heard Him say : All sins shall be for- 
given, 

Except the sin against the Holy Ghost. 

That shall not be forgiven in this world, 

Nor in the world to come. Is that my 
sin? 

Have I offended so there is no hope 

Here nor hereafter ? That I soon shall 
know. 

D God, have mercy ! Christ have mercy 
on me ! 
Throws himself headlong from the cliff. 



THE THREE CROSSES 

MANAHEM, THE ESSENIAN. 

Three crosses in this noonday night up- 
lifted, 

Three human figures that in mortal pain 

Gleam white against the supernatural dark- 
ness ; 

Two thieves, that writhe in torture, and 
between them 

The Suffering Messiah, the Son of Joseph, 

iy, the Messiah Triumphant, Son of 
David ! 

A crown of thorns on that dishonored 
head ! 

Those hands that healed the sick now 
pierced with nails, 

Those feet that wandered homeless through 
the world 

Now crossed and bleeding, and at rest for- 
ever ! 

And the three faithful Maries, over- 
whelmed 

By this great sorrow, kneeling, praying, 
weeping ! 

Joseph Caiaphas, thou great High- 
Priest, 

How wilt thou answer for this deed of 
blood ? 

scribes and elders. 
Thou that destroyest the Temple, and dost 
build it 



In three days, save thyself ; and if thou be 
The Son of God, come down now from the 



CHIEF PRIESTS. 

I Others he saved, himself he cannot save ! 
Let Christ the King of Israel descend 
That we may see and believe ! 

scribes and elders. 

In God he trusted ; 
Let Him deliver him, if He will have him» 
And we will then believe. 

CHRISTCS. 

Father ! forgive them ; 
They know not what they do. 

THE IMPENITENT THIEF. 

If thou be Christ, 
Oh save thyself and us ! 

THE PENITENT THIEF. 

Remember me, 
Lord, when thou comest into thine own 
kingdom. 

CHRISTUS. 

This day shalt thou be with me in Paradise. 

MANAHEM. 

Golgotha ! Golgotha ! Oh the pain and 
darkness ! 

On the uplifted cross, that shall forever 

Shine through the darkness, and shall con- 
quer pain 

By the triumphant memory of this hour ! 

SIMON MAGUS. 

Nazarene ! I find thee here at last ! 
Thou art no more a phantom unto me ! 
This is the end of one who called himself 
The Son of God ! Such is the fate of those 
Who preach new doctrines. 'T is not 

what he did, 
But what he said, hath brought him untc 
this. 

1 will speak evil of no dignitaries. 
This is my hour of triumph, Nazarene ! 

THE YOUNG RULER. 

This is the end of him who said to me : 
Sell that thou hast, and give unto the poor ! 
This is the treasure in heaven he promised 
me ! 



;o4 



CHRISTUS: A MYSTERY 



CHRISTUS. 

Eloi, Eloiy lama sabacthani! 

A soldier, preparing the hyssop. 
He calleth for Elias ! 

ANOTHER. 

Nay, let be ! 
See if Elias now will come to save him ! 



I thirst. 



CHRISTUS. 
A SOLDIER. 

Give him the wormwood ! 



CHRISTUS, with a loud cry, bowing his head. 
It is finished ! 



XI 



THE TWO MARIES 

MARY MAGDALENE, 

We have arisen early, yet the sun 
O'ertakes us ere we reach the sepulchre, 
To wrap the body of our blessed Lord 
With our sweet spices. 

MARY, MOTHER OP JAMES. 

Lo, this is the garden, 
And yonder is the sepulchre. But who 
Shall roll away the stone for us to enter ? 

MARY MAGDALENE. 

It hath been rolled away ! The sepulchre 
Is open ! Ah, who hath been here before 

us, 
When we rose early, wishing to be first ? 

MARY, MOTHER OF JAMES. 

I am affrighted ! 

MARY MAGDALENE. 

Hush ! I will stoop down 
And look within. There is a young man 

sitting 
On the right side, clothed in a long white 

garment ! 
It is an angel ! 

THE ANGEL. 

Fear not ; ye are seeking 
Jesus of Nazareth, which was crucified. 
Why do ye seek the living among the dead ? 
He is no longer here ; he is arisen ! 



Come see the place where the Lord lay! 

Remember 
How He spake unto you in Galilee, 
Saying : The Son of Man must be delivered 
Into the hands of sinful men ; by them 
Be crucified, and the third day rise again ! 
But go your way, and say to his disciples, 
He goeth before you into Galilee ; 
There shall ye see Him as He said to you 

MARY, MOTHER OF JAMES. 

I will go swiftly for them. 

mary magdalene, alone, weeping. 

They have taken 
My Lord away from me, and now I know 

not 
Where they have laid Him ! Who is 

there to tell me ? 
This is the gardener. Surely he must know. 

CHRISTUS. 

Woman, why weepest thou ? Whom seek- 
est thou ? 

MARY MAGDALENE. 

They have taken my Lord away ; I cannot 

find Him. 
O Sir, if thou have borne him hence, I 

pray thee 
Tell me where thou hast laid Him. 



MARY MAGDALENE. 



Mary I 
Rabboni I 

.EE 



XII 

THE SEA OF GALILEE 

NAthanael, in the ship. 
All is now ended. 



JOHN. 

Nay, He is arisen, 
I ran unto the tomb, and stooping down 
Looked in, and saw the linen grave-clothes 

lying* 
Yet dared not enter. 

peter. 

I went in, and saw 
The napkin that had been about his head. 



THE DIVINE TRAGEDY 



40s 



Not lying with the ether linen clothes, 
But wrapped together in a separate place. 

THOMAS. 

And I have seen Him. I have seen the 

print 
Of nails upon his hands, and thrust my 

hands 
Into his side. I know He is arisen ; 
But where are now the kingdom and the 

glory 
He promised unto us ? We have all 

dreamed 
That we were princes, and we wake to find 
We are but fishermen. 



PETER. 

Who should have been 



Fishers of men ! 



JOHN. 

We have come back again 
To the old life, the peaceful life, among 
The white towns of the Galilean lake. 

PETER. 

They seem to me like silent sepulchres 

In the gray light of morning ! The old life, 

Yea, the old life ! for we have toiled all 

night 
And have caught nothing. 

JOHN. 

Do ye see a man 
Standing upon the beach and beckoning ? 
*T is like an apparition. He hath kindled 
A fire of coals, and seems to wait for us. 
He calleth. 

CHRISTUS, from the shore. 

Children, have ye any meat ? 

PETER. 

Alas ! We have caught nothing. 

CHRISTUS. 

Cast the net 
On the right side of the ship, and ye shall 
find. 

PETER. 

How that reminds me of the days gone by, 
And one who said : Launch out into the 

deep, 
A.nd cast your nets ! 



NATHANAEL. 

We have but let them down 
And they are filled, so that we carnof 
draw them ! 



It is the Lord ! 



JOHN. 



peter, girding his fisher's coat about him. 

He said : When I am riser 
I will go before you into Galilee ! 
He casts himself into the lake. 

JOHN. 

There is no fear in love ; for perfect love 
Casteth out tear. Now then, if ye are men. 
Put forth your strength ; we are not far 

from shore ; 
The net is heavy, but breaks not. All is 

safe. 

peter, on the shore. 
Dear Lord ! I heard thy voice and could 

not wait. 
Let me behold thy face, and kiss thy feet i 
Thou art not dead, thou livest ! Again I 

see thee. 
Pardon, dear Lord ! I am a sinful man ; 
I have denied thee thrice. Have mercy 

on me ! 

the others, coming to land. 

Dear Lord ! stay with us ! cheer us ! com- 
fort us ! 

Lo ! we again have found thee ! Leave us 
not ! 

CHRISTUS. 

Bring hither of the fish that ye have 

caught, 
And come and eat ! 

JOHN. 

Behold ! He breaketh bread 
As He was wont. From his own blessed 

hands 
Again we take it. 

CHRISTUS. 

Simon, son of Jonas. 
Lovest thou me, more than these others ? 



Yea, 
More, Lord, than all men ; even more than 

these. 
Thou knowest that I love thee. 



4o6 



CHRISTUS: A MYSTERY 



CHRISTUS. 

Feed my lambs. 
thomas, aside. 
How more than we do ? He remaineth ever 
Self-confident and boastful as before. 
Nothing will cure him. 

CHRISTUS. 

Simon, son of Jonas, 
Lovest thou me ? 

PETER. 

Yea, dearest Lord, I love thee. 
Thou knowest that I love thee. 

CHRISTUS. 

Feed my sheep. 
thomas, aside. 
Again, the selfsame question, and the an- 
swer 
Repeated with more vehemence. Can the 

Master 
Doubt if we love Him ? 

CHRISTUS. 

Simon, son of Jonas, 
Lovest thou me ? 

peter, grieved. 
Dear Lord ! thou knowest all things. 
Thou knowest that I love thee. 

CHRISTUS. 

Feed my sheep. 

When thou wast young thou girdedst thy- 
self, and walkedst 

Whither thou wouldst ; but when thou 
shalt be old, 

Thou shalt stretch forth thy hands, and 
other men 

Shall gird and carry thee whither thou 
wouldst not. 

Follow thou me ! 

john, aside. 

It is a prophecy 
Of what death he shall die. 

peter, pointing to john. 

Tell me, O Lord, 
And. what shall this man do ? 

CHRISTUS. 

And if I will 
He tarry till I come, what is it to thee ? 
Follow thou me ! 



peter. 

Yea, I will follow thee, dear Lord and 
Master ! 

Will follow thee through fasting and temp- 
tation, 

Through all thine agony and bloody sweat 

Thy cross and passion, even unto death ! 



EPILOGUE 
SYMBOLUM APOSTOLORUM 

PETER. 

I believe in God the Father Almighty ; 



JOHN. 

Maker of Heaven and Earth ; 






JAMES. 

And in Jesus Christ his only Son, our 
Lord ; 

ANDREW. 

Who was conceived by the Holy Ghosi 
born of the Virgin Mary ; 



1 



PHILIP. 

Suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, , 
dead, and buried ; 






And the third day He rose again from th 
dead : 



. 



BARTHOLOMEW. 

He ascended into Heaven, and sitteth on 
the right hand of God, the Father 
Almighty ; 

MATTHEW. 

From thence He shall come to judge the 
quick and the dead. 

JAMES, THE SON OF ALPHEUS. 

I believe in the Holy Ghost ; the holy 
Catholic Church ; 

SIMON ZELOTES. 

The communion of Saints ; the forgiveness 
of sins ; 

JUDE. 

The resurrection of the body ; 

MATTHIAS. 

And the Life Everlasting. 



THE ABBOT JOACHIM 



4o? 



FIRST INTERLUDE 

THE ABBOT JOACHIM 

i ROOM IN THE CONVENT OF FLORA 
IN CALABRIA. NIGHT 



The wind is rising ; it seizes and shakes 
The doors and window-blinds and makes 
Mysterious moanings in the halls ; 
The convent-chimneys seem almost 
The trumpets of some heavenly host, 
Setting its watch upon our walls ! 
Where it listeth, there it bloweth ; 
We hear the sound, but no man knoweth 
Whence it cometh or whither it goeth, 
And thus it is with the Holy Ghost. 

breath of God ! O my delight 
In many a vigil of the night, 

Like the great voice in Patmos heard 
By John, the Evangelist of the Word, 

1 hear thee behind me saying : Write 
In a book the things that thou hast seen, 
The things that are, and that have been, 
And the things that shall hereafter be ! 

This convent, on the rocky crest 
Of the Calabrian hills, to me 
A Patmos is wherein I rest ; 
While round about me like a sea 
The white mists roll, and overflow 
The world that lies unseen below 
In darkness and in mystery. 
Here in the Spirit, in the vast 
Embrace of God's encircling arm, 
Am I uplifted from all harm ; 
The world seems something far away, 
Something belonging to the Past, 
A hostelry, a peasant's farm, 
That lodged me for a night or day, 
In which I care not to remain, 
"Not having left, to see again. 

Thus, in the hollow of God's hand 

I dwelt on sacred Tabor's height, 

When as a simple acolyte 

I journeyed to the Holy Land, 

A pilgrim for my master's sake, 

And saw the Galilean Lake, 

And walked through many a village street 

That once had echoed to his feet. 

There first I heard the great command s 



The voice behind me saying : Write ! 

And suddenly my soul became 

Illumined by a flash of flame, 

That left imprinted on my thought 

The image I in vain had sought, 

And which forever shall remain ; 

As sometimes from these windows high? 

Gazing at midnight on the sky 

Black with a storm of wind and rain, 

I have beheld a sudden glare 

Of lightning lay the landscape bare, 

With tower and town and hill and plain 

Distinct, and burnt into my brain, 

Never to be effaced again ! 

And I have written. These volumes 

three, 
The Apocalypse, the Harmony 
Of the Sacred Scriptures, new and old, 
And the Psalter with Ten Strings, enfold 
Within their pages, all and each, 
The Eternal Gospel that I teach. 
Well I remember the Kingdom of Heaven 
Hath been likened to a little leaven 
Hidden in two measures of meal, 
Until it leavened the whole mass ; 
So likewise will it come to pass 
With the doctrines that I here- conceal. 

Open and manifest to me 
The truth appears, and must be told ; 
All sacred mysteries are threefold ; 
Three Persons in the Trinity, 
Three ages of Humanity, 
And Holy Scriptures likewise three, 
Of Fear, of Wisdom, and of Love ; 
For Wisdom that begins in Fear 
Endeth in Love ; the atmosphere 
In which the soul delights to be, 
And finds that perfect liberty 
Which cometh only from above. 

In the first Age, the early prime 

And dawn of all historic time, 

The Father reigned ; and face to face 

He spake with the primeval race. 

Bright Angels, on his errands sent, 

Sat with the patriarch in his tent ; 

His prophets thundered in the street ; 

His lightnings flashed, his hailstorms beat? 

In earthquake and in flood and flame, 

In tempest and in cloud He came ! 

The fear of God is in his Book ; 

The pages of the Pentateuch 

Are full of the terror of his name. 



*o8 



CHRISTUS: A MYSTERY 



Then reigned the Son ; his Covenant 

Was peace on earth, good-will to man ; 

With Him the reign of Law began. 

He was the Wisdom and the Word, 

And sent his Angels Ministrant, 

Unterrified and undeterred, 

To rescue souls forlorn and lost, 

The troubled, tempted, tempest-tost 

To heal, to comfort, and to teach. 

The fiery tongues of Pentecost 

His symbols were, that they should preach 

In every form of human speech, 

From continent to continent. 

9e is the Light Divine, whose rays 

Across the thousand years unspent 

Shine through the darkness of our days, 

And touch with their celestial fires 

Our churches and our convent spires. 

His Book is the New Testament. 

These Ages now are of the Past ; 
And the Third Age begins at last. 
The coming of the Holy Ghost, 
The reign of Grace, the reign of Love 
Brightens the mountain-tops above, 
And the dark outline of the coast. 
Already the whole land is white 
With convent walls, as if by night 
A snow had fallen on hill and height ! 
Already from the streets and marts 
Of town and traffic, and low cares, 
Men climb the consecrated stairs 
With weary feet, and bleeding hearts ; 
And leave the world, and its delights, 
Its passions, struggles, and despairs, 
For contemplation and for prayers 
In cloister-cells of coenobites. 

Eternal benedictions rest 

Upon thy name, Saint Benedict ! 

Founder of convents in the West, 

Who built on Mount Cassino's crest 

In the Land of Labor, thine eagle's nest ! 

May I be found not derelict 

In aught of faith or godly fear, 

If I have written, in many a page, 

The Gospel of the coming age, 

The Eternal Gospel men shall hear. 

Oh may I live resembling thee, 

And die at last as thou hast died ; 

So that hereafter men may see, 

Within the choir, a form of air, 

Standing with arms outstretched in prayer. 

As one that hath been crucified 1 



My work is finished ; I am strong 
In faith and hope and charity ; 
For I have written the things I see, 
The things that have been and shall be. 
Conscious of right, nor fearing wrong ; 
Because I am in love with Love, 
And the sole thing I hate is Hate ; 
For Hate is death ; and Love is life, 
A peace, a splendor from above ; 
And Hate, a never-ending strife, 
A smoke, a blackness from the abyss 
Where unclean serpents coil and hiss? 
Love is the Holy Ghost within ; 
Hate the unpardonable sin ! 
Who preaches otherwise than this, 
Betrays his Master with a kiss ! 



PART TWO 

THE GOLDEN LEGEND 

PROLOGUE 

THE SPIRE OF STRASBURG CATHE- 
DRAL 

Night and storm. Lucifer, with the Powers of 
the Air, trying to tear down the Cross. 



Hasten ! hasten ! 

O ye spirits ! 

From its station drag the ponderous 

Cross of iron, that to mock us 

Is uplifted high in air ! 

VOICES. 

Oh, we cannot ! 

For around it 

All the Saints and Guardian Angels 

Throng in legions to protect it ; 

They defeat us everywhere ! 

THE BELLS. 

Laudo Deum verum J 
Plebem voco ! 
Congrego clerum ! 

LUCIFER. 

Lower ! lower ! 
Hover downward ! 
Seize the loud, vociferous bells, and 
Clashing, clanging, to the pavement 
j Hurl them from their windy tower I 



J 



THE GOLDEN LEGEND 



409 



VOICES. 

All thy thunders 

Here are harmless ! 

For these bells have been anointed, 

And baptized with holy water ! 

They defy our utmost power. 

THE BELLS. 

Defunctos ploro J 
Pestem fugo ! 
Festa decoro ! 

LUCIFER. 

Shake the casements ! 

Break the painted 

Panes, that flame with gold and crimson ; 

Scatter them like leaves of Autumn, 

Swept away before the blast ! 



Oh, we cannot ! 

The Archangel 

Michael flames from every window, 

With the sword of fire that drove us 

Headlong, out of heaven, aghast ! 

THE BELLS. 



Funera plango ! 
Fulgura frango ! 
Sabbata pango ! 



Aim your lightnings 

At the oaken, 

Massive, iron-studded portals J 

Sack the house of God, and scatter 

Wide the ashes of the dead ! 

VOICES. 

Oh, we cannot \ 

The Apostles 

And the Martyrs, wrapped in mantles 

Stand as warders at the entrance, 

Stand as sentinels o'erhead ! 

THE BELLS. 

Excito lentos ! 
Dissipo ventos ! 
Paco cruentos ! 

LUCIFER. 

Baffled ! baffled ! 

Inefficient, 

Craven spirits ! leave this labor 

Unto Time, the great Destroyer I 

Come away, ere night is gone ! 



Onward ! onward ! 

With the night- wind, 

Over field and farm and forest, 

Lonely homestead, darksome hamlet, 

Blighting all we breathe upon ! 

They sweep away. Organ and Gregorian Chant 



Nocte surgentes 
Vigilemus omnes ! 



THE CASTLE OF VAUTSBERG ON 
RHINE 



THE 



A chamber in a tower. Prince Henry, sitting 
alone, ill and restless. Midnight. 

PRINCE HENRY. 

I cannot sleep ! my fervid brain 

Calls up the vanished Past again, 

And throws its misty splendors deep 

Into the pallid realms of sleep ! 

A breath from that far-distant shore 

Comes freshening ever more and more, 

And wafts o'er intervening seas 

Sweet odors from the Hesperides t 

A wind, that through the corridor 

Just stirs the curtain, and no more, 

And, touching the reolian strings, 

Faints with the burden that it brings I 

Come back ! ye friendships long departed 1 

That like o'erflowing streamlets started, 

And now are dwindled, one by one, 

To stony channels in the sun ! 

Come back ! ye friends, whose lives art 

ended, 
Come back, with all that light attended, 
Which seemed to darken and decay 
When ye arose and went away ! 

They come, the shapes of joy and woe-, 

The airy crowds of long ago, 

The dreams and fancies known of yore, 

That have been, and shall be no more. 

They change the cloisters of the night 

Into a garden of delight ; 

They make the dark and dreary hours 

Open and blossom into flowers ! 

I would not sleep ! I love to be 

Again in their fair company ; 

But ere my lips can bid chem stay, 

They pass and vanish quite away I 



JiO 



CHRISTUS: A MYSTERY 



Alas ! our memories may retrace 
Each circumstance of time and place, 
Season and scene come back again, 
And outward things unchanged remain ; 
The rest we cannot reinstate ; 
Ourselves we cannot re-create, 
Nor set our souls to the same key 
Of the remembered harmony ! 

Rest ! rest ! Oh, give me rest and peace ! 
The thought of life that ne'er shall cease 
Has something in it like despair, 
A weight I am too weak to bear ! 
Sweeter to this afflicted breast 
The thought of never-ending rest ! 
Sweeter the undisturbed and deep 
Tranquillity of endless sleep ! 
A flash of lightning, out of which Lucifer ap- 
pears, in the garb of a travelling Physician. 

LUCIFER. 

All hail, Prince Henry ! 

prince henry, starting. 

Who is it speaks ? 
Who and what are you ? 

LUCIFER. 

One who seeks 
A moment's audience with the Prince. 

PRINCE HENRY. 

When came you in ? 



A moment since. 
I found your study door unlocked, 
And thought you answered when I knocked. 

PRINCE HENRY. 

I did not hear you. 

LUCIFER. 

You heard the thunder ; 
It was loud enough to waken the dead. 
And it is not a matter of special wonder 
That, when God is walking overhead, 
You should not hear my feeble tread. 

PRINCE HENRY. 

What may your wish or purpose be ? 

LUCIFER. 

Nothing or everything, as it pleases 
Your Highness. You behold in me 



Only a travelling Physician ; 
One of the few who have a mission 
To cure incurable diseases, 
Or those that are called so. 



PRINCE HENRY. 



The dead to life ? 



Can you bring 



Yes ; very nearly. 
And, what is a wiser and better thing, 
Can keep the living from ever needing 
Such an unnatural, strange proceeding, 
By showing conclusively and clearly 
That death is a stupid blunder merely^ 
And not a necessity of our lives. 
My being here is accidental ; 
The storm, that against your casement 

drives, 
In the little village below waylaid me. 
And there I heard with a secret delight, 
Of your maladies physical and mental, 
Which neither astonished nor dismayed 

me. 
And I hastened hither, though late in the 

night, 
To proffer my aid ! 



prince henry, ironically. 

For this you came ! 
Ah, how can I ever hope to requite 
This honor from one so erudite ? 



The honor is mine, or will be when 
I have cured your disease. 






prince henry. 

But not till then. 



What is your illness ? 



■ 



PRINCE henry. 

It has no nam 
A smouldering, dull, perpetual flame, 
As in a kiln, burns in my veins, 
Sending up vapors to the head ; 
My heart has become a dull lagoon, 
Which a kind of leprosy drinks and 

drains ; 
I am accounted as one who is dead, 
And, indeed, I think that I shall be soon. 



THE GOLDEN LEGEND 



411 



And has Gordonius the Divine, 
In his famous Lily of Medicine, — 
I see the book lies open before you, — 
No remedy potent enough to restore you ? 

PRINCE HENRY. 

None whatever ! 

LUCIFER. 

The dead are dead, 
And their oracles dumb, when questioned 
Of the new diseases that human life 
Evolves in its progress, rank and rife. 
Consult the dead upon things that were, 
But the living only on things that are. 
Have you done this, by the appliance 
And aid of doctors ? 

PRINCE HENRY. 

Ay, whole schools 
Of doctors, with their learned rules ; 
But the case is quite beyond their science. 
Even the doctors of Salem 
Send me back word they can discern 
No cure for a malady like this, 
Save one which in its nature is 
Impossible and cannot be ! 

LUCIFER. 

That sounds oracular ! 

PRINCE HENRY. 

Unendurable ! 

LUCIFER. 

What is their remedy ? 

PRINCE HENRY. 

You shall see ; 
Writ in this scroll is the mystery. 

Lucifer, reading. 
u Not to be cured, yet not incurable ! 
The only remedy that remains 
Is the blood that flows from a maiden's 

veins, 
Who of her own free will shall die, 
And give her life as the price of yours ! " 

That is the strangest of all cures, 
And one, I think, you will never try ; 
The prescription you may well put by, 
As something impossible to find 



Before the world itself shall end ! 
And yet who knows ? One cannot say 
That into some maiden's brain that kind 
Of madness will not find its way. 
Meanwhile permit me to recommend, 
As the matter admits of no delay, 
My wonderful Catholicon, 
Of very subtile and magical powers ! 

PRINCE HENRY. 

Purge with your nostrums and drugs infer* 

nal 
The spouts and gargoyles of these towers, 
Not me ! My faith is utterly gone 
In every power but the Power Supernal ! 
Pray tell me, of what school are you ? 



Both of the Old and of the New ! 
The school of Hermes Trismegistus, 
Who uttered his oracles sublime 
Before the Olympiads, in the dew 
Of the early dusk and dawn of time, 
The reign of dateless old Hephaestus \ 
As northward, from its Nubian springs, 
The Nile, forever new and old, 
Among the living and the dead, 
Its mighty, mystic stream has rolled ; 
So, starting from its fountain-head 
Under the lotus-leaves of Isis, 
From the dead demigods of eld, 
Through long, unbroken lines of kings 
Its course the sacred art has held, 
Unchecked, unchanged by man's devices. 
This art the Arabian Geber taught, 
And in alembics, finely wrought, 
Distilling herbs and flowers, discovered 
The secret that so long had hovered 
Upon the misty verge of Truth, 
The Elixir of Perpetual Youth, 
Called Alcohol, in the Arab speech ! 
Like him, this wondrous lore I teach ! 

PRINCE HENRY. 

What ! an adept ? 

LUCIFER. 

Nor less, nor more ) 

PRINCE HENRY. 

I am a reader of your books, 
A lover of that mystic lore ! 
With such a piercing glance it looks 
Into great Nature's open eye, 
And sees within it trembling lie 



412 



CHRISTUS: A MYSTERY 



The portrait of the Deity ! 
And yet, alas ! with all my pains, 
The secret and the mystery 
Have baffled and eluded me, 
Unseen the grand result remains ! 

lucifer, showing a flask. 
Behold it here ! this little flask 
Contains the wonderful quintessence, 
The perfect flower and efflorescence, 
Of all the knowledge man can ask ! 
Hold it up thus against the light ! 

PRINCE HENRY. 

How limpid, pure, and crystalline, 
How quick, and tremulous, and bright 
The little wavelets dance and shine, 
As were it the Water of Life in sooth ! 



It is ! It assuages every pain, 
Cures all disease, and gives again 
To age the swift delights of youth. 
Inhale its fragrance. 

PRINCE HENRY. 

It is sweet. 
A thousand different odors meet 
And mingle in its rare perfume, 
Such as the winds of summer waft 
At open windows through a room ! 

LUCIFER. 

Will you not taste it ? 



PRINCE HENRY. 

Will one draught 

LUCIFER. 

If not, you can drink more. 



Suffice ? 



PRINCE HENRY. 

Into this crystal goblet pour 
So much as safely I may drink. 

lucifer, pouring. 
Let not the quantity alarm you ; 
You may drink all ; it will not harm you. 

PRINCE HENRY. 

I am as one who on the brink 
Of a dark river stands and sees 
The waters flow, the landscape dim 
Around him waver, wheel, and swim, 
And, ere he plunges, stops to think 



Into what whirlpools he may sink ; 

One moment pauses, and no more, 

Then madly plunges from the shore t 

Headlong into the mysteries 

Of life and death I boldly leap, 

Nor fear the fateful current's sweep, 

Nor what in ambush lurks below ! 

For death is better than disease ! 

An Angel with an aiolian harp hovers in ihi 



ANGEL. 

Woe ! woe ! eternal woe ! 

Not only the whispered prayer 

Of love, 

But the imprecations of hate, 

Reverberate 

For ever and ever through the air 

Above ! 

This fearful curse 

Shakes the great universe ! 

lucifer, disappearing. 
Drink ! drink ! 
And thy soul shall sink 
Down into the dark abyss, 
Into the infinite abyss, 
From which no plummet nor rope 
Ever drew up the silver sand of hope 

prince henry, drinking. 
It is like a draught of fire ! 
Through every vein 
I feel again 

The fever of youth, the soft desire ; 
A rapture that is almost pain 
Throbs in my heart and fills my brain 
O joy ! O joy ! I feel 
The band of steel 

That so long and heavily has pressed 
Upon my breast 
Uplifted, and the malediction 
Of my affliction 

Is taken from me, and my weary breast 
At length finds rest. 

THE ANGEL. 

It is but the rest of the fire, from which 

the air has been taken ! 
It is but the rest of the sand, when the 

hour-glass is not shaken ! 
It is but the rest of the tide between the 

ebb and the flow ! 
It is but the rest of the wind between the 

flaws that blow ! 



THE GOLDEN LEGEND 



4i3 



With fiendish laughter, 

Hereafter, 

This false physician 

Will mock thee in thy perdition. 

PRINCE HENRY. 

Speak ! speak ! 

Who says that I am ill ? 

I am not ill ! I am not weak ! 

The trance, the swoon, the dream, is o'er ! 

I feel the chill of death no more ! 

At length, 

I stand renewed in all my strength ! 

Beneath me I can feel 

The great earth stagger and reel, 

As if the feet of a descending God 

Upon its surface trod, 

And like a pebble it rolled beneath his 

heell 
This, O brave physician ! this 
Is thy great Palingenesis ! 
Drinks again. 

THE ANGEL. 

Touch the goblet no more ! 

It will make thy heart sore 

To its very core ! 

Its perfume is the breath 

Of the Angel of Death, 

And the light that within it lies 

Is the flash of his evil eyes. 

Beware ! Oh, beware ! 

For sickness, sorrow, and care 

All are there ! 

prince henry, sinking back, 

thou voice within my breast ! 
Why entreat me, why upbraid me, 
When the steadfast tongues of truth 
And the nattering hopes of youth 
Have all deceived me and betrayed me ? 
Give me, give me rest, oh rest ! 
Golden visions wave and hover, 
Golden vapors, waters streaming, 
Landscapes moving, changing, gleaming ! 

1 am like a happy lover, 

Who illumines life with dreaming ! 
Brave physician ! Rare physician ! 
Well hast thou fulfilled thy mission 1 
His head falls on his book. 

the angel, receding. 
Alas ! alas ! 

Like a vapor the golden vision 
Shall fade and pass, 



And thou wilt find in thy heart again 

Only the blight of pain, 

And bitter, bitter, bitter contrition ! 



COURT-YARD OF THE CASTLE. 



Hubert standing by the gateway. 



How sad the grand old castle looks ! 
O'erhead, the unmolested rooks 
Upon the turret's windy top 
Sit, talking of the farmer's crop ; 
Here in the court-yard springs the grass, 
So few are now the feet that pass ; 
The stately peacocks, bolder grown, 
Come hopping down the steps of stone, 
As if the castle were their own ; 
And I, the poor old seneschal, 
Haunt, like a ghost, the banquet-hall. 
Alas ! the merry guests no more 
Crowd through the hospitable door ; 
No eyes with youth and passion shine, 
No cheeks glow redder than the wine ; 
No song, no laugh, no jovial din 
Of drinking wassail to the pin ; 
But all is silent, sad, and drear, 
And now the only sounds I hear 
Are the hoarse rooks upon the walls, 
And horses stamping in their stalls 1 

A horn sounds. 
What ho ! that merry, sudden blast 
Reminds me of the days long past ! 
And, as of old resounding, grate 
The heavy hinges of the gate, 
And, clattering loud, with iron clank, 
Down goes the sounding bridge of plank, 
As if it were in haste to greet 
The pressure of a traveller's feet ! 

Enter Walter the Minnesinger. 



How now, my friend ! This looks quite 

lonely ! 
No banner flying from the walls, 
No pages and no seneschals, 
No warders, and one porter only I 
Is it you, Hubert ? 

HUBERT. 

Ah ! Master Walter 

WALTER. 

Alas ! how forms and faces alter ? 



414 



CHRISTUS: A MYSTERY 



I did not know you. You look older ! 
Your hair has grown much grayer and 

thinner, 
And you stoop a little in the shoulder ! 

HUBERT. 

Alack ! I am a poor old sinner, 

And, like these towers, begin to moulder ; 

And you have been absent many a year ! 

WALTER, 

How is the Prince ? 



He is not here ; 
He has been ill : and now has fled. 



Speak it out frankly : say he 's dead ! 
Is it not so ? 



No ; if you please, 
A strange, mysterious disease 
Fell on him with a sudden blight. 
Whole hours together he would stand 
Upon the terrace, in a dream, 
Resting his head upon his hand, 
Best pleased when he was most alone, 
Like Saint John Nepomuck in stone, 
Looking down into a stream. 
In the Round Tower, night after night, 
He sat and bleared his eyes with books ; 
Until one morning we found him there 
Stretched on the floor, as if in a swoon 
He had fallen from his chair. 
We hardly recognized his sweet looks ! 

WALTER. 

Poor Prince ! 



I think he might have mended ; 
And he did mend ; but very soon 
The priests came flocking in, like rooks, 
With all their crosiers and their crooks, 
And so at last the matter ended. 



WALTER. 



How did it end ? 



Why, in Saint Rochus 
They made him stand, and wait his doom ; 
And, as if he were condemned to the tomb, 



Began to mutter their hocus-pocus. 

First, the Mass for the Dead they chanted. 

Then three times laid upon his head 

A shovelful of churchyard clay, 

Saying to him, as he stood undaunted, 

" This is a sign that thou art dead, 

So in thy heart be penitent ! " 

And forth from the chapel door he went 

Into disgrace and banishment, 

Clothed in a cloak of hodden gray, 

And bearing a wallet, and a bell, 

Whose sound should be a perpetual knell 

To keep all travellers away. 



Oh, horrible fate ! Outcast, rejected, 
As one with pestilence infected ! 

HUBERT. 

Then was the family tomb unsealed, 
And broken helmet, sword, and shield, 
Buried together, in common wreck, 
As is the custom, when the last 
Of any princely house has passed, 
And thrice, as with a trumpet-blast, 
A herald shouted down the stair 
The words of warning and despair, — * 
" O Hoheneck ! O Hoheneck ! " 



Still in- my soul that cry goes on, — 

Forever gone ! forever gone 1 

Ah, what a cruel sense of loss, 

Like a black shadow, would fall across 

The hearts of all, if he should die ! 

His gracious presence upon earth 

Was as a fire upon a hearth ; 

As pleasant songs, at morning sung, 

The words that dropped from his sweef 

tongue 
Strengthened our hearts ; or heard at nighti 
Made all our slumbers soft and light. 
Where is he ? 

HUBERT. 

In the Odenwald. 
Some of his tenants, unappalled 
By fear of death, or priestly word, — 
A holy family, that make 
Each meal a Supper of the Lord, — 
Have him beneath their watch and ward) 
For love of him, and Jesus' sake ! 
Pray you come in. For why should I 
With out- door hospitality 
My prince's friend thus entertain ? 



THE GOLDEN LEGEND 



415 



I would a moment here remain. 
But you, good Hubert, go before, 
FiH. me a goblet of May-drink, 
As aromatic as the May 
From which it steals the breath away, 
And which he loved so well of yore ; 
It is of him that I would think. 
You shall attend me, when I call, 
In the ancestral banquet-hall. 
Unseen companions, guests of air, 
You cannot wait on, will be there ; 
They taste not food, they drink not wine, 
But their soft eyes look into mine, 
And their lips speak to me, and all 
The vast and shadowy banquet-hall 
Is full of looks and words divine ! 

Leaning over the parapet. 

The day is done ; and slowly from the 

scene 
The stooping sun up-gathers his spent 

shafts, 
And puts them back into his golden 

quiver ! 
Below me in the valley, deep and green 
As goblets are, from which in thirsty 

draughts 
We drink its wine, the swift and mantling 

river 
Flows on triumphant through these lovely 

regions, 
Etched with the shadows of its sombre 

margent, 
And soft, reflected clouds of gold and ar- 
gent ! 
Yes, there it flows, forever, broad and 

still 
As when the vanguard of the Roman 

legions 
First saw it from the top of yonder 

hill! 
How beautiful it is ! Fresh fields of 

wheat, 
Vineyard, and town, and tower with flutter- 

ing flag, 
The consecrated chapel on the crag, 
And the white hamlet gathered round its 

base, 
Like Mary sitting at her Saviour's feet, 
And looking up at his beloved face ! 
O friend ! O best of friends ! Thy absence 

more 
Than the impending night darkens the land- 
scape o'er ! 



II 



A FARM IN THE ODENWALD 

A garden; morning; Prince Henry seated,, 
with a book. Elsie at a distance gathering 
flowers. 

prince henry, reading. 
One morning, all alone, 
Out of his convent of gray stone, 
Into the forest older, darker, grayer, 
His lips moving as if in prayer, 
His head sunken upon his breast 
As in a dream of rest, 
Walked the Monk Felix. All about 
The broad, sweet sunshine lay without, 
Filling the summer air ; 
And within the woodlands as he trod, 
The dusk was like the Truce of God 
With worldly woe and care ; 
Under him lay the golden moss ; 
And above him the boughs of hoary trees 
Waved, and made the sign of the cross, 
And whispered their Benedicites ; 
And from the ground 
Rose an odor sweet and fragrant 
Of the wild-flowers and the vagrant 
Vines that wandered, 
Seeking the sunshine, round and round. 

These he heeded not, but pondered 

On the volume in his hand, 

Wherein amazed he read : 

" A thousand years in thy sight 

Are but as yesterday when it is past, 

And as a watch in the night ! " 

And with his eyes downcast 

In humility he said : 

"I believe, O Lord, 

What is written in thy Word, 

But alas ! I do not understand ! * 

And lo ! he heard 

The sudden singing of a bird, 

A snow-white bird, that from a cloud 

Dropped down, 

And among the branches brown 

Sat singing, 

So sweet, and clear, and loud, 

It seemed a thousand harp-strings ringing 

And the Monk Felix closed his book, 

And long, long, 

With rapturous look, 

He listened to the song, 



410 



CHRISTUS: A MYSTERY 



And hardly breathed or stirred, 

Until he saw, as in a vision, 

The land Elysian, 

And in the heavenly city heard 

Angelic feet 

Fall on the golden flagging of the street. 

And he would fain 

Have caught the wondrous bird, 

But strove in vain ; 

For it flew away, away, 

Far over hill and dell, 

And instead of its sweet singing 

He heard the convent bell 

Suddenly in the silence ringing 

For the service of noonday. 

And he retraced 

His pathway homeward sadly and in haste. 

In the convent there was a change ! 
He looked for each well-known face, 
But the faces were new and strange ; 
New figures sat in the oaken stalls, 
New voices chanted in the choir ; 
Yet the place was the same place, 
The same dusky walls 
Of cold, gray stone, 
The same cloisters and belfry and spire. 

A stranger and alone 

Among that brotherhood 

The Monk Felix stood. 

" Forty years," said a Friar, 

" Have I been Prior 

Of this convent in the wood, 

But for that space 

Never have I beheld thy face ! ' 

The heart of the Monk Felix fell : 

And he answered, with submissive tone, 

" This morning, after the hour of Prime, 

I left my cell, 

And wandered forth alone, 

Listening all the time 

To the melodious singing 

Of a beautiful white bird, 

Until I heard 

The bells of the convent ringing 

Noon from their noisy towers. 

It was as if I dreamed ; 

For what to me had seemed 

Moments only, had been hours 1 " 

u Years ! " said a voice close by. 
It was an aged monk who spoke, 
From a bench of oak 



Fastened against the wall ; — 

He was the oldest monk of all. 

For a whole century 

Had he been there, 

Serving God in prayer, 

The meekest and humblest of his creatures, 

He remembered well the features 

Of Felix, and he said, 

Speaking distinct and slow i 

" One hundred years ago, 

When I was a novice in this place, 

There was here a monk, full of God*g 

grace, 
Who bore the name 
Of Felix, and this man must be the same/* 

And straightway 

They brought forth to the light of day 

A volume old and brown, 

A huge tome, bound 

In brass and wild-boar's hide, 

Wherein were written down 

The names of all who had died 

In the convent, since it was edified. 

And there they found, 

Just as the old monk said, 

That on a certain day and date, 

One hundred years before, 

Had gone forth from the convent gata 

The Monk Felix, and never more 

Had entered that sacred door. 

He had been counted among the dead I 

And they knew, at last, 

That, such had been the power 

Of that celestial and immortal song' 

A hundred years had passed, 

And had not seemed so long 

As a single hour ! 

Elsie comes in urith.flozvers* 



Here are flowers for you, 
But they are not all for you. 
Some of them are for the Yirgin 
And for Saint Cecilia. 

PKINCE HENRY. 

As thou standest there, 
Thou seemest to me like the angel 
That brought the immortal roses 
To Saint Cecilia's bridal chamber 

ELSIE. 

But these will fade. 



THE GOLDEN LEGEND 



417 



PRINCK HENRY. 

Themselves wilJ fade, 

But not their memory, 

And memory has the power 

To re-create them from the dust. 

They remind me, too, 

Of martyred Dorothea, 

Who from celestial gardens sent 

Flowers as her witnesses 

To him who scoffed and doubted. 

ELSIE. 

Do you know the story 

Of Christ and the Sultan's daughter ? 

That is the prettiest legend of them all. 

PRINCE HENRY. 

Then tell it to me. 

But first come hither. 

Lay the flowers down beside me, 

And put both thy hands in mine. 

Now tell me the story. 



Early in the morning 
The Sultan's daughter 
Walked in her father's garden, 
Gathering the bright flowers, 
All full of dew. 

PRINCE HENRY. 

Just as thou hast been doing 
This morning, dearest Elsie. 

ELSIE. 

And as she gathered them 

She wondered more and more 

Who was the Master of the Flowers, 

And made them grow 

Out of the cold, dark earth. 

"In my heart," she said, 

H I love him ; and for him 

Would leave my father's palace, 

To labor in his garden." 

PRINCE HENRY. 

Dear, innocent child ! 

How sweetly thou recallest 

The long-forgotten legend, 

That in my early childhood 

My mother told me ! 

Upon my brain 

It reappears once more, 

As a birth-mark on the forehead 



When a hand suddenly 

Is laid upon it, and removed I 



And at midnight, 

As she lay upon her bed, 

She heard a voice 

Call to her from the garden, 

And, looking forth from her window k 

She saw a beautiful youth 

Standing among the flowers. 

It was the Lord Jesus ; 

And she went down to Him, 

And opened the door for Him ; 

And He said to her, " O maiden ! 

Thou hast thought of me with love, 

And for thy sake 

Out of my Father's kingdom 

Have I come hither : 

I am the Master of the Flowers. 

My garden is in Paradise, 

And if thou wilt go with me, 

Thy bridal garland 

Shall be of bright red flowers." 

And then He took from his finger 

A golden ring, 

And asked the Sultan's daughter 

If she would be his bride. 

And when she answered Him with love. 

His wounds began to bleed, 

And she said to him, 

" O Love ! how red thy heart is, 

And thy hands are full of roses." 

" For thy sake," answered He, 

" For thy sake is my heart so red, 

For thee I bring these roses ; 

I gathered them at the cross 

Whereon I died for thee ! 

Come, for my Father calls. 

Thou art my elected bride ! " 

And the Sultan's daughter 

Followed Him to his Father's garden, 

PRINCE HENRY. 

Wouldst thou have done so, Elsie ? 



Yes, very gladly. 

PRINCE HENRY. 

Then the Celestial Bridegroom 

Will come for thee also. 

Upon thy forehead He will place, 

Not his crown of thorns, 

But a crown of roses. 



4-iS 



CHRISTUS: A MYSTERY 



In thy bridal chamber, 

Like Saint Cecilia, 

Thou shalt hear sweet music, 

And breathe the fragrance 

Of flowers immortal ! 

Go now and place these flowers 

Before her picture. 

A ROOM IN THE FARM-HOUSE. 

Twilight. Ursula spinning. Gottlieb 
asleep in his chair. 



Darker and darker ! Hardly a glimmer 
Of light comes in at the window-pane ; 
Or is it my eyes are growing dimmer ? 
I cannot disentangle this skein, 
Nor wind it rightly upon the reel. 
Elsie ! 

Gottlieb, starting. 
The stopping of thy wheel 
Has awakened me out of a pleasant dream. 
I thought I was sitting beside a stream, 
And heard the grinding of a mill, 
When suddenly the wheels stood still, 
And a voice cried " Elsie " in my ear ! 
It startled me, it seemed so near. 



I was calling her : I want a light. 

I cannot see to spin my flax. 

Bring the lamp, Elsie. Dost thou hear ? 



elsie, within. 



In a moment ! 



GOTTLIEB. 

Where are Bertha and Max ? 



They are sitting with Elsie at the door. 
She is telling them stories of the wood, 
And the Wolf, and little Bed Bidinghood. 

GOTTLIEB. 

And where is the Prince ? 



In his room overhead ; 
I heard him walking across the floor, 
As he always does, with a heavy tread. 

Elsie comes in with a lamp. Max and Bertha 
follow her ; and they all sing the Evening Song 
on the lighting of the lamps. 



Amen ! 



EVENING SONG 

O gladsome light 
Of the Father Immortal, 
And of the celestial 
Sacred and blessed 
Jesus, our Saviour ! 

Now to the sunset 
Again hast thou brought ttf 
And, seeing the evening 
Twilight, we bless thee, 
Praise thee, adore thee S 

Father omnipotent ! 
Son, the Life-giver ! 
Spirit, the Comforter ! 
Worthy at all times 
Of worship and wonder ! 

prince henry, at the door. 



URSULA. 

Who was it said Amen ? 



It was the Prince : he stood at the door, 
And listened a moment, as we chanted 
The evening song. He is gone again. 
I have often seen him there before. 



Poor Prince ! 



URSULA. 



GOTTLIEB. 

I thought the house was haunted 
Poor Prince, alas ! and yet as mild 
And patient as the gentlest child ! 



I love him because he is so good, 
And makes me such fine bows and 

rows, 
To shoot at the robins and the sparrows, 
And the red squirrels in the wood ! 



I love him, too ! 

GOTTLIEB. 

Ah, yes ! we all 
Love him, from the bottom of our hearts ; 
He gave us the farm, the house, and thfe 

grange, 
He gave us the horses and the carts, 
And the great oxen in the stall, 



THE GOLDEN LEGEND 



4*9 



The vineyard, and the forest range ! 
We have nothing to give him but our 
love 1 

BERTHA. 

Did he give us the beautiful stork above 
On the chimney-top, with its large, round 
nest? 

GOTTLIEB. 

No, not the stork ; by God in heaven, 

As a blessing, the dear white stork was 

given, 
But the Prince has given us all the rest. 
God bless him, and make him well again. 

ELSIE. 

Would I could do something for his sake, 
Something to cure his sorrow and pain ! 

GOTTLIEB. 

That no one can ; neither thou nor I, 
Nor any one else. 

ELSIE. 

And must he die ? 

URSULA. 

Yes ; if the dear God does not take 
Pity upon him, in his distress, 
And work a miracle ! 

GOTTLIEB. 

Or unless 
Some maiden, of her own accord, 
Offers her life for that of her lord, 
And is willing to die in his stead. 

ELSIE. 

I will ! 

URSULA. 

Prithee, thou foolish child, be still ! 
Thou shouldst not say what thou dost not 
mean ! 

ELSIE. 

I mean it truly ! 

MAX. 

O father ! this morning, 
Down by the mill, in the ravine, 
Hans killed a wolf, the very same 
That in the night to the sheepfold came, 
And ate up my lamb, that was left out- 
side. 

GOTTLIEB. 

I am glad he is dead. It will be a warning 
To the wolves in the forest, far and wide. 



MAX. 

And I am going to have his hide ! 

BERTHA. 

I wonder if this is the wolf that ate 
Little Red Ridinghood ! 

URSULA. 

Oh, no ! 

That wolf was killed a long while ago. 
Come, children, it is growing late. 



Ah, how I wish I were a man, 

As stout as Hans is, and as strong ! 

I would do nothing else, the whole day 

long, 
But just kill wolves. 

GOTTLIEB. 

Then go to bed, 
And grow as fast as a little boy can. 
Bertha is half asleep already. 
See how she nods her heavy head, 
And her sleepy feet are so unsteady 
She will hardly be able to creep upstairs. 

URSULA. 

Good night, my children. Here 's the 

light. 
And do not forget to say your prayers 
Before you sleep. 

GOTTLIEB. 

Good night ! 
max and BERTHA. 

Good night ! 

They go out with Elsie. 

Ursula, spinning. 
She is a strange and wayward child, 
That Elsie of ours. She looks so old, 
And thoughts and fancies weird and wild 
Seem of late to have taken hold 
Of her heart, that was once so docile and 
mild! 

GOTTLIEB. 

She is like all girls. 

URSULA. 

Ah no, forsooth ! 
Unlike all I have ever seen. 



420 



CHRISTUS: A MYSTERY 



For she has visions and strange dreams, 
And in all her words and ways, she seems 
Much older than she is in truth. 
Who would think her but fifteen ? 
And there has been of late such a change ! 
My heart is heavy with fear and doubt 
That she may not live till the year is out. 
She is so strange, — so strange, — so 
strange J 

GOTTLIEB. 

I am not troubled with any such fear ; 
She will live and thrive for many a year. 

elsie's chamber. 
Night. Elsie praying. 

ELSIE. 

My Redeemer and my Lord, 
I beseech thee, I entreat thee, 
Guide me in each act and word, 
That hereafter I may meet thee, 
Watching, waiting, hoping, yearning, 
With my lamp well trimmed and burning ! 

Interceding 

With these bleeding 

Wounds upon thy hands and side, 

For all who have lived and erred 

Thou hast suffered, thou hast died, 

Scourged, and mocked, and crucified, 

And in the grave hast thou been buried ! 

If my feeble prayer can reach thee, 

O my Saviour, I beseech thee, 

Even as thou hast died for me, 

More sincerely 

Let me follow where thou leadest, 

Let me, bleeding as thou bleedest, 

Die, if dying I may give 

Life to one who asks to live, 

And more nearly, 

Dying thus, resemble thee ! 

THE CHAMBER OF GOTTLIEB AND URSULA. 

Midnight. Elsie standing by their bedside, 
weeping. 

GOTTLIEB. 

The wind is roaring ; the rushing rain 
Is loud upon roof and window-pane, 
As if the Wild Huntsman of Rodenstein, 
Boding evil to me and mine, 
Were abroad to-night with his ghostly 
train 1 



In the brief lulls of the tempest wild, 
The dogs howl in the yard ; and hark ! 
Some one is sobbing in the dark, 
Here in the chamber ! 

ELSIE. 

It is I. 

URSULA. 

Elsie ! what ails thee, my poor child f 

ELSIE. 

I am disturbed and much distressed, 
In thinking our dear Prince must die ; 
I cannot close mine eyes, nor rest. 

GOTTLIEB. 

What wouldst thou ? In the Power Divin* 
His healing lies, not in our own ; 
It is in the hand of God alone. 

ELSIE. 

Nay, He has put it into mine, 
And into my heart ! 

GOTTLIEB. 

Thy words are wild J 

URSULA. 

What dost thou mean ? my child ! mv 
child ! 

ELSIE. 

That for our dear Prince Henry's sake 
I will myself the offering make, 
And give my life to purchase his. 



Am I still dreaming, or awake ? 
Thou speakest carelessly of death, 
And yet thou knowest not what it is. 



'T is the cessation of our breath. 

Silent and motionless we lie ; 

And no one knoweth more than this. 

I saw our little Gertrude die ; 

She left off breathing, and no more 

I smoothed the pillow beneath her head. 

She was more beautiful than before. 

Like violets faded were her eyes ; 

By this we knew that she was dead. 

Through the open window looked the skiea 

Into the chamber where she lay, 

And the wind was like the sound of wings, 

As if angels came to bear her away. 



THE GOLDEN LEGEND 



42: 



Ah ! when I saw and felt these things, 
I found it difficult to stay ; 
I longed to die, as she had died, 
And go forth with her, side by side. 
The Saints are dead, the Martyrs dead, 
And Mary, and our Lord ; and I 
Would follow in humility 
The way by them illumined ! 

URSULA. 

My child ! my child ! thou must not die ! 

ELSIE. 

Why should I live ? Do I not know 
The life of woman is full of woe ? 
Toiling on and on and on, 
With breaking heart, and tearful eyes, 
And silent lips, and in the soul 
The secret longings that arise, 
Which this world never satisfies ! 
Some more, some less, but of the whole 
Not one quite happy, no, not one ! 

URSULA. 

It is the malediction of Eve ! 

ELSIE. 

In place of it, let me receive 
The benediction of Mary, then. 

GOTTLIEB. 

Ah, woe is me ! Ah, woe is me ! 
Most wretched am I among men ! 

URSULA. 

Alas ! that I should live to see 
Thy death, beloved, and to stand 
Above thy grave ! Ah, woe the day ! 

ELSIE. 

Thou wilt not see it. I shall lie 

Beneath the flowers of another land, 

For at Salerno, far away 

Over the mountains, over the sea, 

It is appointed me to die ! 

And it will seem no more to thee 

Than if at the village on market-day 

I should a little longer stay 

Than I am wont. 

URSULA. 

Even as thou sayest ! 
And how my heart beats, when thou stayest ! 
I cannot rest until my sight 



Is satisfied with seeing thee. 
What then, if thou wert dead ? 

GOTTLIEB. 

Ah me I 

Of our old eyes thou art the light ! 
The joy of our old hearts art thou I 
And wilt thou die ? 

URSULA. 

Not now ! not now f 

ELSIE. 

Christ died for me, and shall not I 
Be willing for my Prince to die ? 
You both are silent ; you cannot speak. 
This said I at our Saviour's feast 
After confession, to the priest, 
And even he made no reply. 
Does he not warn us all to seek 
The happier, better land on high, 
Where flowers immortal never wither i 
And could he forbid me to go thither ? 

GOTTLIEB. 

In God's own time, my heart's delight ! 
When He shall call thee, not before ! 

ELSIE. 

I heard Him call. When Christ ascended 
Triumphantly, from star to star, 
He left the gates of heaven ajar. 
I had a vision in the night, 
And saw Him standing at the door 
Of his Father's mansion, vast and splen- 
did, 
And beckoning to me from afar. 
I cannot stay ! 

GOTTLIEB. 

She speaks almost 
As if it were the Holy Ghost 
Spake through her lips, and in her stead 
What if this were of God ? 



Gainsay it dare we not. 



Ah, then 



GOTTLIEB. 

Amen ! 
Elsie ! the words that thou hast said 
Are strange and new for us to hear, 
And fill our hearts with doubt and fear. 
Whether it be a dark temptation 
Of the Evil One, or God's inspiration, 



422 



CHRISTUS: A MYSTERY 



We in our blindness cannot say. 
We must think upon it, and pray ; 
For evil and good it both resembles. 
If it be of God, his will be done ! 
May He guard us from the Evil One ! 
How hot thy hand is ! how it trembles ! 
Go to thy bed, and try to sleep. 

URSULA. 

Kiss me. Good night ; and do not weep ! 

elsie goes out- 
Ah, what an awful thing is this ! 
I almost shuddered at her kiss, 
As if a ghost had touched my cheek, 
I am so childish and so weak ! 
As soon as I see the earliest gray 
Of morning glimmer in the east, 
I will go over to the priest, 
And hear what the good man has to say I 

A VILLAGE CHURCH. 

A woman kneeling at the confessional. 
the parish priest, from within. 
Go, sin no more ! Thy penance o'er, 
A new and better life begin ! 
God maketh thee forever free 
From the dominion of thy sin ! 
Go, sin no more ! He will restore 
The peace that filled thy heart before, 
And pardon thine iniquity ! 
The woman goes out. The Priest comes forth, 
and walks slowly up and down the church. 

blessed Lord ! how much I need 
Thy light to guide me on my way ! 
So many hands, that, without heed, 

Still touch thy wounds, and make them 

bleed ! 
So many feet, that, day by day, 
Still wander from thy fold astray ! 
Unless thou fill me with thy light, 

1 cannot lead thy flock aright ; 
Nor, without thy support, can bear 
The burden of so great a care, 
But am myself a castaway ! 

A pause. 
The day is drawing to its close ; 
And what good deeds, since first it rose, 
Have I presented, Lord, to thee, 
As offerings of my ministry ? 
What wrong repressed, what right main- 
tained, 
What struggle passed, what victory gained, 
What good attempted and attained ? 



Feeble, at best, is my endeavor ! 
I see, but cannot reach, the height 
That lies forever in the light, 
And yet forever and forever, 
When seeming just within my grasp, 
I feel my feeble hands unclasp, 
And sink discouraged into night ! 
For thine own purpose, thou hast sent 
The strife and the discouragement ! 

A pause. 
Why stayest thou, Prince of Hoheneck ? 
Why keep me pacing to and fro 
Amid these aisles of sacred gloom, 
Counting my footsteps as I go, 
And marking with each step a tomb ? 
Why should the world for thee make roonS| 
And wait thy leisure and thy beck ? 
Thou comest in the hope to hear 
Some word of comfort and of cheer. 
What can I say ? I cannot give 
The counsel to do this and live ; 
But rather, firmly to deny 
The tempter, though his power be strong, 
And, inaccessible to wrong, 
Still like a martyr live and die ! 

A pause. 
The evening air grows dusk and brown ; 
I must go forth into the town, 
To visit beds of pain and death, 
Of restless limbs, and quivering breath, 
And sorrowing hearts, and patient eyes 
That see, through tears, the sun go dowDj, 
But never more shall see it rise. 
The poor in body and estate, 
The sick and the disconsolate, 
Must not on man's convenience wait. 

Goes out. 

Enter Lucifer, as a Priest. 

lucifer, with a genuflexion, mocking* 
This is the Black Pater-noster. 
God was my foster, 
He fostered me 

Under the book of the Palm-tree ! 
St. Michael was my dame. 
He was born at Bethlehem, 
He was made of flesh and blood. 
God send me my right food, 
My right food, and shelter too, 
That I may to yon kirk go, 
To read upon yon sweet book 
Which the mighty God of heaven shook 
Open, open, hell's gates ! 
Shut, shut, heaven's gates ! 



THE GOLDEN LEGEND 



423 



All the devils in the air 

The stronger be, that hear the Black 
Prayer ! 

Looking round the church. 

What a darksome and dismal place ! 

I wonder that any man has the face 

To call such a hole the House of the Lord, 

And the Gate of Heaven, — yet such is the 
word. 

Ceiling, and walls, and windows old, 

Covered with cobwebs, blackened with 
mould ; 

Dust on the pulpit, dust on the stairs, 

Dust on the benches, and stalls, and chairs ! 

The pulpit, from which such ponderous ser- 
mons 

Have fallen down on the brains of the Ger- 
mans, 

With about as much real edification 

As if a great Bible, bound in lead, 

Had fallen, and struck them on the head ; 

And I ought to remember that sensation ! 

Here stands the holy- water stoup ! 

Holy-water it may be to many, 

But to me, the veriest Liquor Gehennae ! 

It smells like a filthy fast-day soup ! 

Near it stands the box for the poor, 

With its iron padlock, safe and sure. 

I and the priest of the parish know 

Whither all these charities go ; 

Therefore, to keep up the institution, 

I will add my little contribution ! 
He puts in money. 

Underneath this mouldering tomb, 

With statue of stone, and scutcheon of 
brass, 

Slumbers a great lord of the village. 

All his life was riot and pillage, 

But at length, to escape the threatened 
doom 

Of the everlasting penal fire, 

He died in the dress of a mendicant friar, 

And bartered his wealth for a daily mass. 

But all that afterwards came to pass, 

And whether he finds it dull or pleasant, 

Is kept a secret for the present, 

At his own particular desire. 

And here, in a corner of the wall, 

Shadowy, silent, apart from all, 

With its awful portal open wide, 

And its latticed windows on either side, 

And its step well worn by the bended 

knees 
Of one or two pious centuries, 



Stands the village confessional ! 
Within it, as an honored guest, 
I will sit down awhile and rest ! 

Seats himself in the confessional. 
Here sits the priest ; and faint and low, 
Like the sighing of an evening breeze. 
Comes through these painted lattices 
The ceaseless sound of human woe ; 
Here, while her bosom aches and throbs 
With deep and agonizing sobs, 
That half are passion, half contrition, 
The luckless daughter of perdition 
Slowly confesses her secret shame ! 
The time, the place, the lover's name ! 
Here the grim murderer, with a groan, 
From his bruised conscience rolls the stone* 
Thinking that thus he can atone 
For ravages of sword and flame ! 

Indeed, I marvel, and marvel greatly, 
How a priest can sit here so sedately, 
Reading, the whole year out and in, 
Naught but the catalogue of sin, 
And still keep any faith whatever 
In human virtue ! Never ! never ! 

I cannot repeat a thousandth part 

Of the horrors and crimes and sins and 

woes 
That arise, when with palpitating throes 
The graveyard in the human heart 
Gives up its dead, at the voice of the 

priest, 
As if he were an archangel, at least. 
It makes a peculiar atmosphere, 
This odor of earthly passions and crimes, 
Such as I like to breathe, at times, 
And such as often brings me here 
In the hottest and most pestilential sea- 
son. 
To-day, I come for another reason ; 
To foster and ripen an evil thought 
In a heart that is almost to madnese 

wrought, 
And to make a murderer out of a prinoe, 
A sleight of hand I learned long since ! 
He comes. In the twilight he will not see 
The difference between his priest and me J 
In the same net was the mother caught ! 

prince henry, entering and kneeling at tht 
confessional. 

Remorseful, penitent, and lowly, 
I come to crave, O Father holy, 
Thy benediction on *«iy head. 



424 



CHRISTUS: A MYSTERY 



The benediction shall be said 

After confession, not before ! 

*T is a God-speed to the parting guest, 

Who stands already at the door, 

Sandalled with holiness, and dressed 

In garments pure from earthly stain. 

Meanwhile, hast thou searched well thy 

breast ? 
Does the same madness fill thy brain ? 
Or have thy passion and unrest 
Vanished forever from thy mind ? 

PRINCE HENBY. 

By the same madness still made blind, 

By the same passion still possessed, 

I come again to the house of prayer, 

A man afflicted and distressed ! 

As in a cloudy atmosphere, 

Through unseen sluices of the air, 

A sudden and impetuous wind 

Strikes the great forest white with fear, 

And every branch, and bough, and spray 

Points all its quivering leaves one way, 

And meadows of grass, and fields of grain, 

And the clouds above, and the slanting 

rain, 
And smoke from chimneys of the town, 
Yield themselves to it, and bow down, 
So does this dreadful purpose press 
Onward, with irresistible stress, 
And all my thoughts and faculties, 
Struck level by the strength of this, 
From their true inclination turn, 
And all stream forward to Salern ! 

LUCIFER. 

Alas ! we are but eddies of dust, 
Uplifted by the blast, and whirled 
Along the highway of the world 
A moment only, then to fall 
Back to a common level all, 
At the subsiding of the gust t 

PRINCE HENRY. 

O holy Father ! pardon in me 
The oscillation of a mind 
Unsteadfast, and that cannot find 
Its centre of rest and harmony \ 
For evermore before mine eyes 
This ghastly phantom flits and flies, 
And as a madman through a crowd, 
With frantic gestures and wild cries, 
It hurries onward, and aloud 
Repeats its awful prophecies 1 



Weakness is wretchedness I To be stroi g 
Is to be happy ! I am weak, 
And cannot find the good I seek, 
Because I feel and fear the wrong ! 

LUCIFER. 

Be not alarmed ! The Church is kind, 

And in her mercy and her meekness 

She meets half-way her children's weakness. 

Writes their transgressions in the dust ! 

Though in the Decalogue we find 

The mandate written, "Thou shalt i?oi 

kill ! " 
Yet there are cases when we must. 
In war, for instance, or from scathe 
To guard and keep the one true Faith 
We must look at the Decalogue in the light 
Of an ancient statute, that was meant 
For a mild and general application, 
To be understood with the reservation 
That in certain instances the Right 
Must yield to the Expedient ! 
Thou art a Prince. If thou shouldst die, 
Yv T hat hearts and hopes would prostrate li® | 
What noble deeds, what fair renown, 
Into the grave with thee go down ! 
What acts of valor and courtesy 
Remain undone, and die with thee ! 
Thou art the last of all thy race ! 
With thee a noble name expires, 
And vanishes from the earth's face 
The glorious memory of thy sires ! 
She is a peasant. In her veins 
Flows common and plebeian blood ; 
It is such as daily and hourly stains 
The dust and the turf of battle plains.. 
By vassals shed, in a crimson flood, 
Without reserve, and without reward, 
At the slightest summons of their lord ! 
But thine is precious ; the fore-appointed 
Blood of kings, of God's anointed ! 
Moreover, what has the world in store 
For one like her, but tears and toil ? 
Daughter of sorrow, serf of the soil, 
A peasant's child and a peasant's wife, 
And her soul within her sick and sore 
With the roughness and barrenness of life I 
I marvel not at the heart's recoil 
From a fate like this, in one so tender, 
Nor at its eagerness to surrender 
All the wretchedness, want, and woe 
That await it in this world below, 
Nor the unutterable splendor 
Of the world of rest beyond the skies* 
So the Church sanctions the sacrifice ; 



THE GOLDEN LEGEND 



425 



Therefore inhale this healing balm, 

And breathe this fresh life into thine ; 

Accept the comfort and the calm 

She offers, as a gift divine ; 

Let her fall down and anoint thy feet 

With the ointment costly and most sweet 

Of her young blood, and thou shalt live. 

PRINCE HENRY. 

And will the righteous Heaven forgive ? 

No action, whether foul or fair, 

Is ever done, but it leaves somewhere 

A record, written by fingers ghostly, 

As a blessing or a curse, and mostly 

In the greater weakness or greater strength 

Of the acts which follow it, till at length 

The wrongs of ages are redressed, 

And the justice of God made manifest ! 

LUCIFER. 

In ancient records it is stated 

That, whenever an evil deed is done, 

Another devil is created 

To scourge and torment the offending one ! 

But evil is only good perverted, 

And Lucifer, the bearer of Light, 

But an angel fallen and deserted, 

Thrust from his Father's house with a curse 

Into the black and endless night. 

PRINCE HENRY. 

If justice rules the universe, 
From the good actions of good men 
Angels of light should be begotten, 
And thus the balance restored agrain. 



Yes ; if the world were not so rotten, 
And so given over to the Devil ! 

PRINCE HENRY. 

But this deed, is it good or evil ? 

Have I thine absolution free 

To do it, and without restriction ? 

LUCIFER. 

Ay ; and from whatsoever sin 

Lieth around it and within, 

From all crimes in which it may involve 

thee, 
I now release thee and absolve thee ! 

PRINCE HENRY. 

Give me thy holy benediction. 



lucifer, stretching forth his hand and muttering 

Maledictione perpetua 
Maledicat vos 
Fater eternus ! 

the angel, with the ozolian harp. 

Take heed ! take heed ! 

Noble art thou in thy birth, 

By the good and the great of earth 

Hast thou been taught ! 

Be noble in every thought 

And in every deed ! 

Let not the illusion of thy senses 

Betray thee to deadly offences. 

Be strong ! be good ! be pure ! 

The right only shall endure, 

All things else are but false pretences* 

I entreat thee, I implore, 

Listen no more 

To the suggestions of an evil spirit, 

That even now is there, 

Making the foul seem fair, 

And selfishness itself a virtue and a merit 



A ROOM IN THE FARM-HOUSE. 
GOTTLIEB. 

It is decided ! For many days, 

And nights as many, we have had 

A nameless terror in our breast, 

Making us timid, and afraid 

Of God, and his mysterious ways ! 

We have been sorrowful and sad ; 

Much have we suffered, much have prayed 

That he would lead us as is best, 

And show us what his will required. 

It is decided ; and we give 

Our child, O Prince, that you may live ! 



It is of God. He has inspired 

This purpose in her ; and through pain, 

Out of a world of sin and woe, 

He takes her to Himself again. 

The mother's heart resists no longer ; 

With the Angel of the Lord in vain 

It wrestled, for he was the stronger, 

GOTTLIEB. 

As Abraham offered long ago 
His son unto the Lord, and even 
The Everlasting Father in heaven 



426 



CHRISTUS: A MYSTERY 



Gave his, as a lamb unto the slaughter, 
So do I offer up my daughter ! 
Ursula hides her face. 

ELSIE. 

My life is little, 
Only a cup of water, 
But pure and limpid. 
Take it, O my Prince ! 
Let it refresh you, 
Let it restore you. 
It is given willingly, 
It is given freely ; 
May God bless the gift 1 



PRINCE HENRY. 



And the giver ! 



GOTTLIEB. 



Amen ! 



I accept it I 



PRINCE HENRY, 



GOTTLIEB. 

Where are the children ? 

URSULA. 

They are already asleep. 

GOTTLIEB. 

What if they were dead ? 

IN THE GARDEN. 

ELSIE. 

I have one thing to ask of you. 

PRINCE HENRY. 

It is already granted. 

ELSIE. 

Promise me, 
When we are gone from here, and on our 

way 
Are journeying to Salerno, you will not, 
By word or deed, endeavor to dissuade me 
And turn me from my purpose ; but re- 
member 
That as a pilgrim to the Holy City 
Walks unmolested, and with thoughts of 

pardon 
Occupied wholly, so would I approach 



What is it ? 



The gates of Heaven, in this great jubi< 

lee, 
With my petition, putting off from me 
All thoughts of earth, as shoes from oil 

my feet. 
Promise me this. 

PRINCE HENRY. 

Thy words fall from thy lips 
Like roses from the lips of Angelo : and 



Might stoop to pick them up ! 

ELSIE. 

Will you not promise ? 

PRINCE HENRY. 

If ever we depart upon this journey, 
So long to one or both of us, I promise. 

ELSIE. 

Shall we not go, then? Have you lifted 

me 
Into the air, only to hurl me back 
Wounded upon the ground ? and offered 

me 



The waters of eternal life, to bid me 
Drink the polluted puddles of this world ? 



PRINCE HENRY, 

Elsie ! what a lesson thou dost teach 
me ! 

The life which is, and that which is to 
come, 

Suspended hang in such nice equipoise 
ath di 
scale 

In which we throw our hearts preponder- 
ates, 

And the other, like an empty one, flies 
up, 

And is accounted vanity and air ! 

To me the thought of death is terrible, 

Having such hold on life. To thee it is 
not 

So much even as the lifting of a latch ; 

Only a step into the open air 

Out of a tent already luminous 

With light that shines through its trans- 
parent walls ! 

O pure in heart ! from thy sweet dust 
shall grow 

Lilies, upon whose petals will be written 

" Ave Maria " in characters of gold 1 



, 



THE GOLDEN LEGEND 



43* 



III 

A STREET IN STRASBURG 

Night. Prince Henry wandering alone y 
wrapped in a cloak. 

PRINCE HENRY. 

Still is the night. The sound of feet 

Has died away from the empty street, 

And like an artisan, bending down 

His head on his anvil, the dark town 

Sleeps, with a slumber deep and sweet. 

Sleepless and restless, I alone, 

In the dusk and damp of these walls of 

stone, 
Wander and weep in my remorse ! 

CRIER of the dead, ringing a bell. 

Wake ! wake ! 
All ye that sleep ! 
Pray for the Dead ! 
Pray for the Dead ! 

PRINCE HENRY. 

Hark ! with what accents loud and hoarse 
This warder on the walls of death 
Sends forth the challenge of his breath ! 
I see the dead that sleep in the grave ! 
They rise up and their garments wave, 
Dimly and spectral, as they rise, 
With the light of another world in their 
eyes ! 

CRIER OF THE DEAD. 

Wake ! wake ! 
All ye that sleep ! 
Pray for the Dead ! 
Pray for the Dead ! 

PRINCE HENRY. 

Why for the dead, who are at rest ? 
Pray for the living, in whose breast 
The struggle between right and wrong 
Is raging terrible and strong, 
As when good angels war with devils ! 
This is the Master of the Revels, 
Who, at Life's flowing feast, proposes 
The health of absent friends, and pledges, 
Not in bright goblets crowned with roses, 
And tinkling as we touch their edges, 
But with his dismal, tinkling bell, 
That mocks and mimics their funeral 
knell 1 



CRIER OF THE DEAD. 

Wake ! wake ! 
All ye that sleep ! 
Pray for the Dead ! 
Pray for the Dead ! 

PRINCE HENRY. 

Wake not, beloved ! be thy sleep 
Silent as night is, and as deep 1 
There walks a sentinel at thy gate 
Whose heart is heavy and desolate, 
And the heavings of whose bosom number 
The respirations of thy slumber, 
As if some strange, mysterious fate 
Had linked two hearts in one, and mine 
Went madly wheeling about thine, 
Only with wider and wilder sweep ! 

crier of the dead, at a distance. 
Wake ! wake ! 
All ye that sleep ! 
Pray for the Dead ! 
Pray for the Dead ! 

PRINCE HENRY. 

Lo ! with what depth of blackness thrown 
Against the clouds, far up the skies 
The walls of the cathedral rise, 
Like a mysterious grove of stone, 
With fitful lights and shadows blending, 
As from behind, the moon, ascending, 
Lights its dim aisles and paths unknown ! 
The wind is rising ; but the boughs 
Rise not and fall not with the wind, 
That through their foliage sobs and 

soughs ; 
Only the cloudy rack behind, 
Drifting onward, wild and ragged, 
Gives to each spire and buttress jagged 
A seeming motion undefined. 
Below on the square, an armed knight, 
Still as a statue and as white, 
Sits on his steed, and the moonbeams 

quiver 
Upon the points of his armor bright 
As on the ripples of a river. 
He lifts the visor from his cheek, 
And beckons, and makes as he woultf 

speak. 

Walter the Minnesinger. 
Friend ! can you tell me where alight 
Thuringia's horsemen for the night ? 
For I have lingered in the rear, 
And wander vainly up and down. 



428 



CHRISTUS: A MYSTERY 



PRINCE HENRY. 

I am a stranger in the town, 
As thou art ; but the voice I hear 
Is not a stranger to mine ear. 
Thou art Walter of the Vogelweid ! 



Thou hast guessed rightly ; and thy name 
Is Henry of Hoheneck ! 

PRINCE HENRY. 

Ay, the same. 

Walter, embracing him. 
Come closer, closer to my side ! 
What brings thee hither ? What potent 

charm 
Has drawn thee from thy German farm 
Into the old Alsatian city ? 

PRINCE HENRY. 

A tale of wonder and of pity ! 

A wretched man, almost by stealth 

Dragging my body to Salern, 

In the vain hope and search for health, 

And destined never to return. 

Already thou hast heard the rest. 

But what brings thee, thus armed and dight 

In the equipments of a knight ? 

WALTER. 

Dost thou not see upon my breast 
The cross of the Crusaders shine ? 
My pathway leads to Palestine. 

PRINCE HENRY. 

Ah, would that way were also mine 1 
noble poet ! thou whose heart 
Is like a nest of singing-birds 
Rocked on the topmost bough of life, 
Wilt thou, too, from our sky depart, 
And in the clangor of the strife 
Mingle the music of thy words ? 



My hopes are high, my heart is proud, 
And like a trumpet long and loud, 
Thither my thoughts all clang and ring ! 
My life is in my hand, and lo ! 
I grasp and bend it as a bow, 
And shoot forth from its trembling string 
An arrow, that shall be, perchance, 
Like the arrow of the Israelite king 
Shot from the window toward the east, 
That of the Lord's deliverance ! 



PRINCE HENRY. 

My life, alas ! is what thou seest ! 

enviable fate ! to be 

Strong, beautiful, and armed like thee 

With lyre and sword, with song and steel • 

A hand to smite, a heart to feel ! 

Thy heart, thy hand, thy lyre, thy sword. 

Thou givest all unto thy Lord ; 

While I, so mean and abject grown, 

Am thinking of myself alone. 

WALTER. 

Be patient : Time will reinstate 
Thy health and fortunes. 

PRINCE HENRY. 

'Tis too late! 

1 cannot strive against my fate ! 



Come with me ; for my steed is weary ; 
Our journey has been long and dreary, 
And, dreaming of his stall, he dints 
With his impatient hoofs the flints. 

prince henry, aside. 
I am ashamed, in my disgrace, 
To look into that noble face ! 
To-morrow, Walter, let it be. 



To-morrow, at the dawn of day, 
I shall again be on my way. 
Come with me to the hostelry, 
For I have many things to say. 
Our journey into Italy 
Perchance together we may make ; 
Wilt thou not do it for my sake ? 

prince henry. 
A sick man's pace would but impede 
Thine eager and impatient speed. 
Besides, my pathway leads me round 
To Hirschau, in the forest's bound, 
Where I assemble man and steed, 
And all things for my journey's need 
They go out. 

lucieer, ./lying over the city. 
Sleep, sleep, O city ! till the light 
Wake you to sin and crime again, 
Whilst on your dreams, like dismal raiiij 
I scatter downward through the night 
My maledictions dark and deep. 
I have more martyrs in your wails 



THE GOLDEN LEGEND 



42$ 



Than God has ; and they cannot sleep ; 
They are my bondsmen and my thralls ; 
Their wretched lives are full of pain, 
Wild agonies of nerve and brain ; 
And every heart-beat, every breath, 
Is a convulsion worse than death ! 
Sleep, sleep, O city ! though within 
The circuit of your walls there be 
No habitation free from sin, 
And all its nameless misery ; 
The aching heart, the aching head, 
Grief for the living and the dead, 
And foul corruption of the time, 
Disease, distress, and want, and woe, 
And crimes, and passions that may grow 
Until they ripen into crime ! 

SQUARE IN FRONT OF THE CATHEDRAL. 

faster Sunday. Friar Cuthbert preaching 
to the crowd from a pulpit in the open air. 
Prince Henry and Elsie crossing the square. 

PRINCE HENRY. 

This is the day, when from the dead 
Our Lord arose ; and everywhere, 
Out of their darkness and despair, 
Triumphant over fears and foes, 
The hearts of his disciples rose, 
When to the women, standing near, 
The Angel in shining vesture said, 
" The Lord is risen ; he is not here ! " 
And, mindful that the day is come, 
On all the hearths in Christendom 
The fires are quenched, to be again 
Rekindled from the sun, that high 
Is dancing in the cloudless sky. 
The churches are all decked with flowers, 
The salutations among men 
Are but the Angel's words divine, 
" Christ is arisen ! " and the bells 
Catch the glad murmur, as it swells, 
And chant together in their towers. 
All hearts are glad ; and free from care 
The faces of the people shine. 
See what a crowd is in the square, 
Tayly and gallantly arrayed ! 

ELSIE. 

Let us go back ; I am afraid ! 

PRINCE HENRY. 

Nay, let us mount the church-steps here, 
Under the doorway's sacred shadow ; 
We can see all things, and be freer 
From the crowd that madly heaves and 
presses ! 



ELSIE. 



What a gay pageant ! what bright dresses I 
It looks like a tiower-bespriukled meadow. 
What is that yonder on the square ? 

PRINCE HENRY. 

A pulpit in the open air, 

And a Friar, who is preaching to the crowd 

In a voice so deep and clear and loud, 

That, if we listen, and give heed, 

His lowest words will reach the ear. 

friar cuthbert, gesticulating and cracking a 

postilion's whip. 

What ho ! good people ! do you not hear f 
Dashing along at the top of his speed, 
Booted and spurred, on his jaded steed, 
A courier comes with words of cheer. 
Courier ! what is the news, I pray ? 
" Christ is arisen ! " Whence come you ? 

" From court." 
Then I do not believe it ; you say it in 

sport. 

Cracks his whip again. 
Ah, here comes another, riding this way ; 
We soon shall know what he has to say. 
Courier ! what are the tidings to-day ? 
"Christ is arisen ! " Whence come you^ 

" From town." 
Then I do not believe it ; away with you, 

clown. 

Cracks his whip more violently. 
And here comes a third, who is spurring 

amain ; 
What news do you bring, with your loose- 
hanging rein, 
Your spurs wet with blood, and your bridle 

with foam ? 
" Christ is arisen ! " Whence come you ? 

"From Rome." 
Ah, now I believe. He is risen, indeed. 
Ride on with the news, at the top of your 

speed ! 

Great applause among the crowd. 
To come back to my text ! When the 

news was first spread 
That Christ was arisen indeed from the 

dead, 
Very great was the joy of the angels in 

heaven ; 
And as great the dispute as to who should 

carry 
The tidings thereof to the Virgin Mary, 
Pierced to the heart with sorrows seven. 
Old Father Adam wevs first to propose, 



430 



CHRISTUS: A MYSTERY 



As being the author of all our woes ; 
But he was refused, for fear, said they, 
He would stop to eat apples on the way ! 
Abel came next, but petitioned in vain, 
Because he might meet with his brother 

Cain ! 
Noah, too, was refused, lest his weakness 

for wine 
Should delay him at every tavern-sign ; 
And John the Baptist could not get a vote, 
On account of his old-fashioned camel's- 

hair coat ; 
And the Penitent Thief, who died on the 

cross, 
Was reminded that all his bones were 

broken ! 
Till at last, when each in turn had spoken, 
The company being still at loss, 
The Angel, who rolled away the stone, 
Was sent to the sepulchre, all alone. 
And filled with glory that gloomy prison, 
And said to the Virgin, " The Lord is 

arisen ! " 

The Cathedral bells ring. 
But hark ! the bells are beginning to 

chime ; 
And I feel that I am growing hoarse. 
I will put an end to my discourse, 
And leave the rest for some other time. 
For the bells themselves are the best of 

preachers ; 
Their brazen lips are learned teachers, 
From their pulpits of stone, in the upper air, 
Sounding aloft, without crack or flaw, 
Shriller than trumpets under the Law, 
Now a sermon, and now a prayer. 
The clangorous hammer is the tongue, 
This way, that way, beaten and swung, 
That from mouth of brass, as from Mouth 

of Gold, 
May be taught the Testaments, New and 

Old. 
And above it the great cross-beam of wood 
Representeth the Holy Rood, 
Upon which, like the bell, our hopes are 

hung. 
And the wheel wherewith it is swayed and 

rung 
Is the mind of man, that round and round 
Sways, and maketh the tongue to sound ! 
And the rope, with its twisted cordage three, 
Denoteth the Scriptural Trinity 
Of Morals, and Symbols, and History ; 
And the upward and downward motion show 
That we touch upon matters high and low ; 



And the constant change and transmutatiou 
Of action and of contemplation, 
Downward, the Scripture brought from on 

high, 
Upward, exalted again to the sky ; 
Downward, the literal interpretation, 
Upward, the Vision and Mystery ! 

And now, my hearers, to make an end, 
I have only one word more to say ; 
In the church, in honor of Easter day 
Will be presented a Miracle Play ; 
And I hope you will all have the grace tc 

attend. 
Christ bring us at last to his felicity ! 
Pax vobiscum ! et Benedicite ! 



IN THE CATHEDRAL. 



Kyrie Eleison ! 
Christe Eleison! 



I am at home here in my Father's house ! 
These paintings of the Saints upon the walls 
Have all familiar and benignant faces. 

PRINCE HENRY. 

The portraits of the family of God ! 
Thine own hereafter shall be placed among 
them. 



. 



ELSIE. 

How very grand it is and wonderful ! 
Never have I beheld a church so splendid [ 
Such columns, and such arches, and such 

windows, 
So many tombs and statues in the chapels, 
And under them so many confessionals. 
They must be for the rich. I should not 

like 
To tell my sins in such a church as this. 
Who built it ? 

PRINCE HENRY. 

A great master of his craft, 
Erwin von Steinbach ; but not he alone, 
For many generations labored with him. 
Children that came to see these Saints in 

stone, 
As day by day out of the blocks they rose, 
Grew old and died, and still the work went 



THE GOLDEN LEGEND 



431 



And on, and on, and is not yet completed. 
The generation that succeeds our own 
Perhaps may finish it. The architect 
Built his great heart into these sculptured 

stones, 
And with him toiled his children, and their 

lives 
Were builded, with his own, into the walls, 
As offerings unto God. You see that statue 
Fixing its joyous, but deep-wrinkled eyes 
Upon the Pillars of the Angels yonder. 
That is the image of the master, carved 
By the fair hand of his own child, Sabina. 

ELSIE. 

How beautiful is the column that he looks 
at! 

PRINCE HENRY. 

That, too, she sculptured. At the base of 

it 
Stand the Evangelists ; above their heads 
Four Angels blowing upon marble trumpets, 
And over them the blessed Christ, sur- 
rounded 
By his attendant ministers, upholding 
The instruments of his passion. 

ELSIE. 

my Lord ! 
Would I could leave behind me upon earth 
Some monument to thy glory, such as this ! 

PRINCE HENRY. 

A greater monument than this thou leavest 
In thine own life, all purity and love ! 
See, too, the Rose, above the western portal 
Resplendent with a thousand gorgeous 

colors, 
The perfect flower of Gothic loveliness ! 

ELSIE. 

And, in the gallery, the long line of statues, 
Christ with his twelve Apostles watching 
us ! 

A Bishop in armor, booted and spurred, passes 
with his train. 

PRINCE HENRY. 

But come away ; we have not time to look. 
The crowd already fills the church, and 

yonder 
Upon a stage, a herald with a trumpet, 
Clad like the Angel Gabriel, proclaims 
The Mystery that will now be represented. 



THE NATIVITY 

A MIRACLE-PLAY 

INTROITUS 

PRJECO. 

Come, good people, all and each, 
Come and listen to our speech ! 
In your presence here I stand, 
With a trumpet in my hand, 
To announce the Easter Play, 
Which we represent to-day ! 
First of all we shall rehearse, 
In our action and our verse, 
The Nativity of our Lord, 
As written in the old record 
Of the Protevangelion, 
So that be who reads may run I 
Blows his trumpet. 



I. HEAVEN. 

mercy, at the feet of God. 
Have pity, Lord ! be not afraid 
To save mankind, whom thou hast made 
Nor let the souls that were betrayed 
Perish eternally ! 

JUSTICE. 

It cannot be, it must not be ! 
When in the garden placed by thee s 
The fruit of the forbidden tree 
He ate, and he must die 5 

MERCY. 

Have pity, Lord ! let penitence 
Atone for disobedience, 
Nor let the fruit of man's offence 
Be endless misery ! 

JUSTICE. 

What penitence proportionate 
Can e'er be felt for sin so great '? 
Of the forbidden fruit he ate, 
And damned must he be 1 

GOD. 

He shall be saved, if that within 
The bounds of earth one free from sin 
Be found, who for his kith and kin 
Will suffer martyrdom. 



«2 



CHRISTUS: A MYSTERY 



THE FOUR VIRTUES. 



Lord ! we have searched the world around, 
From centre to the utmost bound, 
But no such mortal can be found ; 
Despairing, back we come. 



No mortal, but a God made man, 
Can ever carry out this plan, 
Achieving what none other can, 
Salvation unto all ! 

GOD. 

Go, then, O my beloved Son ! 
It can by thee alone be done ; 
By thee the victory shall be won 
O'er Satan and the Fall ! 

Here the Angel Gabriel shall leave Paradise 
and fly towards the earth ; the jaws of Hell 
open below, and the Devils walk about, making 
a great noise. 



H. MARY AT THE WELL. 



Along the garden walk, and thence 
Through the wicket in the garden fence, 

I steal with quiet pace, 
My pitcher at the well to fill, 
That lies so deep and cool and still 

In this sequestered place. 

These sycamores keep guard around ; 
I see no face, I hear no sound, 

Save bubblings of the spring, 
And my companions, who, within, 
The threads of gold and scarlet spin, 

And at their labor sing. 

THE ANGEL GABRIEL. 

Hail, Virgin Mary, full of grace ! 

Here Mary looketh around her, trembling, and 

then saith : 



Who is it speaketh in this place, 
With such a gentle voice ? 



The Lord of heaven is with thee now ! 
Blessed among all women thou, 
Who art his holy choice ! 



mary, setting down the pitcher. 
What can this mean ? No one is near, 
And yet, such sacred words I hear, 

I almost fear to stay. 

Here the Angel, appearing to her, shall say : 

GABRIEL. 

Fear not, O Mary ! but believe ! 
For thou, a Virgin, shalt conceive 
A child this very day. 

Fear not, O Mary ! from the sky 
The majesty of the Most High 
Shall overshadow thee ! 

MARY. 

Behold the handmaid of the Lord ! 
According to thy holy word, 
So be it unto me ! 

Here the Devils shall again make a great noise, 
under the stage. 



III. THE ANGELS OF THE SEVEN PLANET^ 
BEARING THE STAR OF BETHLEHEM. 

THE ANGELS. 

The Angels of the Planets Seven, 
Across the shining fields of heaven 

The natal star we bring ! 
Dropping our sevenfold virtues down 
As priceless jewels in the crown 

Of Christ, our new-born King. 

RAPHAEL. 

I am the Angel of the Sun, 
Whose flaming wheels began to run 

When God's almighty breath 
Said to the darkness and the Night, 
Let there be light ! and there was light . 

I bring the gift of Faith. 



I am the Angel of the Moon, 
Darkened to be rekindled soon 

Beneath the azure cope ! 
Nearest to earth, it is my ray 
That best illumes the midnight way ; 

I bring the gift of Hope ! 



The Angel of the Star of Love, 
The Evening Star, that shines above 
The place where lovers be, 



THE GOLDEN LEGEND 



433 



Above all happy hearths and homes, 
On roofs of thatch, or golden domes, 
I give him Charity ! 

ZOBIACHEL. 

The Planet Jupiter is mine ! 

The mightiest star of all that shine, 

Except the sun alone ! 
He is the High Priest of the Dove, 
And sends, from his great throne above, 

Justice, that shall atone ! 



The Planet Mercury, whose place 
Is nearest to the sun in space, 

Is my allotted sphere ! 
And with celestial ardor swift 
I bear upon my hands the gift 

Of heavenly Prudence here ! 

URIEL. 

I am the Minister of Mars, 

The strongest star among the stars ! 

My songs of power prelude 
The march and battle of man's life, 
And for the suffering and the strife, 

I give him Fortitude ! 

ORIFEL. 

The Angel of the uttermost 

Of all the shining, heavenly host, 

From the far-off expanse 
Of the Saturnian, endless space 
I bring the last, the crowning grace, 

The gift of Temperance ! 

A sudden light shines from the windows of the 
stable in the village below. 



IV. THE WISE MEN OF THE EAST. 

The stable of the Inn. The Virgin and Child. 
Three Gypsy Kings, Gaspar, Melchior, arid 
Belshazzar, shall come in. 

GASPAR. 

Hail to thee, Jesus of Nazareth ! 
Though in a manger thou draw breath, 
Thou art greater than Life and Death, 

Greater than Joy or Woe ! 
This cross upon the line of life 
Portendeth struggle, toil, and strife, 
And through a region with peril rife 

In darkness shalt thou go ! 



MELCHIOR. 

Hail to thee, King of Jerusalem ! 
Though humbly born in Bethlehem, 
A sceptre and a diadem 

Await thy brow and hand ! 
The sceptre is a simple reed, 
The crown will make thy temples bleed 
And in thine hour of greatest need, 

Abashed thy subjects stand ! 

BELSHAZZAR. 

Hail to thee, Christ of Christendom ! 
O'er all the earth thy kingdom come ! 
From distant Trebizond to Rome 

Thy name shall men adore ! 
Peace and good-will among all men, 
The Virgin has returned again, 
Returned the old Saturnian reign 

And Golden Age once more. 

THE CHILD CHRIST. 

Jesus, the Son of God, am I, 
Born here to suffer and to die 
According to the prophecy, 
That other men may live ! 

THjj: virgin. 
And now these clothes, that wrapped Him. 

take 
And keep them precious, for his sake ; 
Our benediction thus we make, 
Naught else have we to sfive. 
She gives them swaddling-clothes, and they de- 
part. 

V. THE FLIGHT INTO EGYPT. 

Here Joseph shall come in, leading an ass, 01 
which are seated Mary and the Child. 



Here will we rest us, under these 
O'erhanging branches of the trees, 
Where robins chant their Litanies 
And canticles of joy. 



My saddle-girths have given way 
With trudging through the heat to-day 
To you I think it is but play 
To ride and hold the boy. 



Hark ! how the robins shout and sing, 
As if to hail their infant King ! 



434 



CHRISTUS: A MYSTERY 



I will alight at yonder spring 
To wash his little coat. 

JOSEPH. 

And I will hobble well the ass, 
Lest, being loose upon the grass, 
He should escape ; for, by the mass, 
He 's nimble as a goat. 

Here Mary shall alight and go to the spring. 



Joseph ! I am much afraid, 

For men are sleeping in the shade ; 

1 fear that we shall be waylaid, 
And robbed and beaten sore ! 

Here a band of robbers shall be seen sleeping, two 
of whom shall rise and come forward, 

DUMACHUS. 

Cock's soul ! deliver up your gold ! 



I pray you, Sirs, let go your hold ! 
You see that I am weak and old, 
Of wealth I have no store. 

DUMACHUS. 

Give up your money ! 

TITUS. 

Prithee cease. 
Let these people go in peace. 

DUMACHUS. 

First let them pay for their release, 
And then go on their way. 



These forty groats I give in fee, 
If thou wilt only silent be. 

MARY. 



May God be merciful to thee 
Upon the Judgment Day ! 



When thirty years shall have gone by, 

I at Jerusalem shall die, 

By Jewish hands exalted high 

On the accursed tree, 
Then on my right and my left side, 
These thieves shall both be cruc'fi^ 



And Titus thenceforth shall abide 
In paradise with me. 

Here a great rumor of trumpets and horses, lih, 
the noise of a king with his army, and the rob< 
bers shall take flight. 



VI. THE SLAUGHTER OF THE INNOCENTS* 
KING HEROD. 

Potz-tausend ! Himmel-sacrament ! 
Filled am I with great wonderment 

At this unwelcome news ! 
Am I not Herod ? Who shall dare 
My crown to take, my sceptre bear, 

As king among the Jews ? 

Here he shall stride up and down and flourish 
his sword. 

What ho ! I fain would drink a can 
Of the strong wine of Canaan ! 

The wine of Helbon bring 
I purchased at the Fair of Tyre, 
As red as blood, as hot as fire, 

And fit for any king ! 

He quaffs great goblets of wine. 
Now at the window will I stand, 
While in the street the armed band 

The little children slay ; 
The babe just born in Bethlehem 
Will surely slaughtered be with them, 

Nor live another day ! 

Here a voice of lamentation shall be heard in & 
street. 






O wicked king ! O cruel speed ! 
To do this most unrighteous deed 5 
My children all are slain ! 



Ho seneschal ! another cup ! 

With wine of Sorek fill it up ! 

I would a bumper drain ! 



May maledictions fall and blast 
Thyself and lineage, to the last 
Of all thy kith and kin 1 



Another goblet ! quick ! and stir 
Pomegranate juice and drops of myrrh 
And calamus therein ! 



THE GOLDEN LEGEND 



435 



soldiers, in the street. 
Give up thy child into our hands ! 
It is King Herod who commands 
That he should thus be slain ! 

THE NURSE MEDUSA. 

O monstrous men ! What have ye done ! 
It is King Herod's only son 
That ye have cleft in twain ! 

HEROD. 

Ah, luckless day ! What words of fear 
Are these that smite upon my ear 

With such a doleful sound ! 
What torments rack my heart and head ! 
Would I were dead ! would I were dead, 

And buried in the ground ! 

He falls down and writhes as though eaten by 
worms. Hell opens, and Satan and Asta- 
roth come forth, and drag him down. 

VII. JESUS AT PLAY WITH HIS SCHOOL- 
MATES. 



The shower is over. Let us play, 
And make some sparrows out of clay, 
Down by the river's side. 

JUDAS. 

See, how the stream has overflowed 
Its banks, and o'er the meadow road 
Is spreading far and wide ! 

They draw water out of the river by channels, and 
form little pools. Jesus makes twelve sparrows 
of clay, and the other boys do the same. 

JESUS. 

Look ! look how prettily I make 
These little sparrows by the lake 

Bend down their necks and drink ! 
Now will I make them sing and soar 
So far, they shall return no more 

Unto this river's brink. 



That canst thou not ! They are but clay, 
They cannot sing, nor fly away 
Above the meadow lands ! 

JESUS. 

Fly, fly ! ye sparrows ! you are free ! 
And while you live, remember me, 

Who made you with my hands. 
Here Jesus shall clap his hands, and the spar- 
rows shall fly away, chirruping. 



JUDAS. 

Thou art a sorcerer, I know ; 
Oft has my mother told me so, 
I will not play with thee ! 

He strikes Jesus in the right side. 



Ah, Judas ! thou hast smote my side, 
And when I shall be crucified, 
There shall I pierced be ! 

Here Joseph shall come in and say: 



Ye wicked boys ! why do ye play, 
And break the holy Sabbath day ? 
What, think ye, will your mothers say 

To see you in such plight ! 
In such a sweat and such a heat, 
With all that mud upon your feet ! 
There 's not a beggar in the street 

Makes such a sorry sight ! 



VIII. THE VILLAGE SCHOOL. 

The Rabbi Ben Israel, sitting on a high stool, 
with a long beard, and a rod in his hand. 

RABBI. 

I am the Rabbi Ben Israel, 
Throughout this village known full well. 
And, as my scholars all will tell, 

Learned in things divine ; 
The Cabala and Talmud hoar 
Than all the prophets prize I more, 
For water is all Bible lore, 

But Mishna is strong wine. 

My fame extends from West to East? 
And always, at the Purim feast, 
I am as drunk as any beast 

That wallows in his sty ; 
The wine it so elateth me, 
That I no difference can see 
Between " Accursed Haman be ! " 

And " Blessed be Mordecai ! " 

Come hither, Judas Iscariot ; 
Say, if thy lesson thou hast got 
From the Rabbinical Book or not. 
Why howl the dogs at night ? 

JUDAS. 

In the Rabbinical Book, it saith 
The dogs howl, when with icy breath 



436 



CHRISTUS: A MYSTERY 



Great Sammael, the Angel of Death, 
Takes through the town his flight ! 

RABBI. 

Well, boy ! now say, if thou art wise, 
When the Angel of Death, who is full of 

eyes, 
Comes where a sick man dying lies, 
What doth he to the wight ? 

JUDAS. 

He stands beside him, dark and tall, 
Holding a sword, from which doth fall 
Into his mouth a drop of gall, 
And so he turneth white. 

RABBI. 

And now, my Judas, say to me 
What the great Voices Four may be, 
That quite across the world do flee, 
And are not heard by men ? 



The Voice of the Sun in heaven's dome, 
The Voice of the Murmuring of Rome, 
The Voice of a Soul that goeth home, 
And the Angel of the Rain ! 



Right are thine answers every one ! 
Now little Jesus, the carpenter's son, 
Let us see how thy ta?k is done ; 
Canst thou thy letters say ? 



Aleph. 

RABBI. 

What next ? Do not stop yet ! 
Go on with all the alphabet. 
Come, Aleph, Beth ; dost thou forget ? 
Cock's soul ! thou 'dst rather play ! 



What Aleph means 



w nat Aiepn means i ia 
Before I any farther go 



JESUS. 

I fain would know, 



RABBI. 

Oh, by Saint Peter ! wouldst thou so ? 

Come hither, boy, to me. 
As surely as the letter Jod 
Once cried aloud, and spake to God, 
So surely shalt thou feel this rod, 

And punished shalt thou be ! 
Here Rabbi Ben Israel shall lift up his rod to 
strike Jesus, and his right arm shall be par- 
alyzed. 



IX. CROWNED WITH FLOWERS. 

Jesus sitting among his playmates crowned with 
.flowers as their King. 

boys. 

We spread our garments on the ground ! 
With fragrant flowers thy head is crowned 
While like a guard we stand around, 

And hail thee as our King ! 
Thou art the new King of the Jews ! 
Nor let the passers-by refuse 
To bring that homage which men use 

To majesty to bring. 

Here a traveller shall go by, and the boys shall 
lay hold of his garments and say: 



Come hither ! and all reverence pay 
Unto our monarch, crowned to-day 1 
Then go rejoicing on your way, 
In all prosperity ! 

traveller. 

Hail to the King of Bethlehem, 
Who weareth in his diadem 
The yellow crocus for the gem 
Of his authority ! 

He passes by; and others come in, bearing <m& 
litter a sick child. 

BOYS. 

Set down the litter and draw near ! 
The King of Bethlehem is here ! 
What ails the child, who seems to fear 
That we shall do him harm ? 

THE BEARERS. 

He climbed up to the robin's nest, 
And out there darted, from his rest, 
A serpent with a crimson crest, 
And stung him in the arm. 

JESUS. 

Bring him to me, and let me feel 
The wounded place ; my touch can hes 
The sting of serpents, and can steal 

The poison from the bite ! 
He touches the wound, and the boy begins to 
Cease to lament ! I can foresee 
That thon hereafter known shalt ne 
Among the men who follow me- 

As Simon the Canaanite ' 



THE GOLDEN LEGEND 



437 



EPILOGUE. 

In the after part of the day- 
Will be represented another play, 
Of the Passion of our Blessed Lord, 
Beginning directly after Nones ! 
At the close of which we shall accord, 
By way of benison and reward, 
The sight of a holy Martyr's bones ! 



IV 



THE ROAD TO HIRSCHAU 

Prince Henry and Elsie, wnn their attendants 
on horseback. 



Onward and onward the highway runs to 
the distant city, impatiently bearing 

Tidings of human joy and disaster, of love 
and of hate, of doing and daring ! 

PRINCE HENRY. 

This life of ours is a wild seolian harp of 
many a joyous strain, 

But under them all there runs a loud per- 
petual wail, as of souls in pain. 



Faith alone can interpret life, and the heart 
that aches and bleeds with the stigma 

Of pain, alone bears the likeness of Christ, 
and can comprehend its dark enigma. 

PRINCE HENRY. 

Man is selfish, and seeketh pleasure with 
little care of what may betide, 

Else why am I travelling here beside thee, 
a demon that rides by an angel's 
side? 



All the hedges are white with dust, and the 
great dog under the creaking wain 

Hangs his head in the lazy heat, while on- 
ward the horses toil and strain. 

PRINCE HENRY. 

Now they stop at the wayside inn, and the 

wagoner laughs with the landlord's 

daughter, 
While out of the dripping trough the horses 

distend their leathern sides with 

water. 



ELSIE. 

All through life there are wayside inns, 
where man may refresh his soul with 
love ; 

Even the lowest may quench his thirst at 
rivulets fed by springs from above. 

PRINCE HENRY. 

Yonder, where rises the cross of stone, oar 
journey along the highway ends, 

And over the fields, by a bridle path, down 
into the broad green valley de- 
scends. 

ELSIE. 

I am not sorry to leave behind the beaten 
road with its dust and heat ; 

The air will be sweeter far, and the turf 
will be softer under our horses' 
feet. 
They turn down a green lane. 

ELSIE. 

Sweet is the air with the budding haws, 
and the valley stretching for miles 
below 

Is white with blossoming cherry-trees, as if 
just covered with lightest snow. 

PRINCE HENRY. 

Over our heads a white cascade is gleam- 
ing against the distant hill ; 

We cannot hear it, nor see it move, but it 
hangs like a banner when winds are 
still. 

ELSIE. 

Damp and cool is this deep ravine, and 
cool the sound of the brook by our 
side ! 

What is this castle that rises above us, and 
lords it over a land so wide ? 

PRINCE HENRY. 

It is the home of the Counts of Calva ; well 
have I known these scenes of old, 

Well I remember each tower and turret, 
remember the brooklet, the wood, 
and the wold. 

ELSIE. 

Hark ! from the little village below us the 

bells of the church are ringing for 

rain ! 
Priests and peasants in long procession 

come forth and kneel on the arid 

plain. 



43* 



CHRISTUS: A MYSTERY 



PRINCE HENRY. 

They have not long to wait, for I see in 
the south uprising a little cloud, 

That before the sun shall be set will cover 
the sky above us as with a shroud. 

They pass on. 

THE CONVENT OF HIRSCHAU IN THE BLACK 
FOREST. 

The Convent cellar. Friar Claus comes in 
with a light and a basket of empty flagons. 

FRIAR CLAUS. 

I always enter this sacred place 

With a thoughtful, solemn, and reverent 

pace, 
Pausing long enough on each stair 
To breathe an ejaculatory prayer, 
And a benediction on the vines 
That produce these various sorts of 

wines ! 
For my part, I am well content 
That we have got through with the tedious 

Lent ! 
Fasting is all very well for those 
Who have to contend with invisible foes ; 
But I am quite sure it does not agree 
With a quiet, peaceable man like me, 
Who am not of that nervous and meagre 

kind, 
That are always distressed in body and 

mind ! 
And at times it really does me good 
To come down among this brotherhood, 
Dwelling forever underground, 
Silent, contemplative, round and sound ; 
Each one old, and brown with mould, 
But filled to the lips with the ardor of 

youth, 
With the latent power and love of truth, 
And with virtues fervent and manifold. 

I have heard it said, that at Easter-tide 
When buds are swelling on every side, 
And the sap begins to move in the vine, 
Then in all cellars, far and wide, 
The oldest as well as the newest wine 
Begins to stir itself, and ferment, 
With a kind of revolt and discontent 
At being so long in darkness pent, 
And fain would burst from its sombre tun 
To bask on the hillside in the sun ; 
As in the bosom of us poor friars, 
The tumult of half -subdued desires 



For the world that we have left behind 

Disturbs at times all peace of mind ! 

And now that we have lived through Lent,, 

My duty it is, as often before, 

To open awhile the prison-door, 

And give these restless spirits vent. 

Now here is a cask that stands alone, 
And has stood a hundred years or more, 
Its beard of cobwebs, long and hoar, 
Trailing and sweeping along the floor, 
Like Barbarossa, who sits in his cave, 
Taciturn, sombre, sedate, and grave, 
Till his beard has grown through the table | 

of stone ! 
It is of the quick and not of the dead ! 
In its veins the blood is hot and red, 
And a heart still beats in those ribs of oak 
That time may have tamed, but has not 

broke ! 
It comes from Bacharach on the Rhine, 
Is one of the three best kinds of wine. 
And costs some hundred florins the ohm ; 
But that I do not consider dear, 
When I remember that every year 
Four butts are sent to the Pope of Rome. 
And whenever a goblet thereof I drain, 
The old rhyme keeps running in my brain I 

At Bacharach on the Rhine, 
At Hochheim on the Main, 
And at Wiirzburg on the Stein, 
Grow the three best kinds of wine ! 

They are all good wines, and better far 
Than those of the Neckar, or those of th© 

Ahr. 
In particular, Wiirzburg well may boast 
Of its blessed wine of the Holy Ghost, 
Which of all wines I like the most. 
This I shall draw for the Abbot's drink* 

ing, 
Who seems to be much of my way of think 3 

ing. 

Fills a flagon. 
Ah ! how the streamlet laughs and sings I 
What a delicious fragrance springs 
From the deep flagon, while it fills, 
As of hyacinths and daffodils ! 
Between this cask and the Abbot's lips 
Many have been the sips and slips ; 
Many have been the draughts of wine, 
On their way to his, that have stopped at 

mine ; 
And many a time my soul has hankered 



THE GOLDEN LEGEND 



439 



For a deep draught out of his silver tan- 
kard, 
When it should have been busy with other 

affairs, 
Less with its longings and more with its 

prayers. 
But now there is no such awkward con- 
dition, 
No danger of death and eternal perdition ; 
So here 's to the Abbot and Brothers all, 
Who dwell in this convent of Peter and 
Paul! 

He drinks. 
O cordial delicious ! O soother of pain ! 
It flashes like sunshine into nay brain ! 
A benison rest on the Bishop who sends 
Such a f udder of wine as this to his friends ! 
And now a flagon for such as may ask 
A draught from the noble Bacharach cask, 
And I will be gone, though I know full well 
The cellar 's a cheerf uller place than the 

cell. 
Behold where he stands, all sound and good, 
Brown and old in his oaken hood ; 
Silent he seems externally 
As any Carthusian monk may be ; 
But within, what a spirit of deep unrest ! 
What a seething and simmering in his 

breast ! 
As if the heaving of his great heart 
Would burst his belt of oak apart ! 
Let me unloose this button of wood, 
And quiet a little his turbulent mood. 

Sets it running. 
See ! how its currents gleam and shine, 
As if they had caught the purple hues 
Of autumn sunsets on the Rhine, 
Descending and mingling with the dews ; 
Or as if the grapes were stained with the 

blood 
Of the innocent boy, who, some years back, 
Was taken and crucified by the Jews, 
In that ancient town of Bacharach ; 
Perdition upon those infidel Jews, 
In that ancient town of Bacharach ! 
The beautiful town, that gives us wine 
With the fragrant odor of Muscadine ! 
[ should deem it wrong to let this pass 
Without first touching my lips to the glass, 
For here in the midst of the current I stand 
Like the stone Pfalz in the midst of the 

river, 
Taking toll upon either hand, 
^nd much more grateful to the giver. 
He drinks. 



Here, now, is a very inferior kind, 
Such as in any town you may find, 
Such as one might imagine would suit 
The rascal who drank wine out of a boot. 
And, after all, it was not a crime, 
For he won thereby Dorf Hiiffelsheim. 
A jolly old toper ! who at a pull 
Could drink a postilion's jack-boot full, 
And ask with a laugh, when that was 

done, 
If the fellow had left the other one ! 
This wine is as good as we can afford 
To the friars, who sit at the lower board, 
And cannot distinguish bad from good, 
And are far better off than if they could, 
Being rather the rude disciples of beer 
Thau of anything more refined and dear ! 
Fills the flagon and departs. 

THE SCRIPTORIUM. 
Friar Pacificus transcribing and illuminating 

FRIAR PACIFICUS. 

It is growing dark ! Yet one line more, 
And then my work for to-day is o'er. 
I come again to the name of the Lord ! 
Ere I that awful name record, 
That is spoken so lightly among men, 
Let me pause awhile, and wash my pen ; 
Pure from blemish and blot must it be 
When it writes that word of mystery ! 

Thus have I labored on and on, 

Nearly through the Gospel of John. 

Can it be that from the lips 

Of this same gentle Evangelist, 

That Christ himself perhaps has kissed, 

Came the dread Apocalypse ! 

It has a very awful look, 

As it stands there at the end of the book 

Like the sun in an eclipse. 

Ah me ! when I think of that vision divine, 

Think of writing it, line by line, 

I stand in awe of the terrible curse, 

Like the trump of doom, in the closing 

verse ! 
God forgive me ! if ever I 
Take aught from the book of that Prophecy, 
Lest my part too should be taken away 
From the Book of Life on the Judgment 

Day. 
This is well written, though I say it ! 
I should not be afraid to display it 
In open day, on the selfsame shelf 



44o 



CHRISTUS: A MYSTERY 



With the writings of St. Thecla herself, 

Or of Theodosius, who of old 

Wrote the Gospels in letters of gold ! 

That goodly folio standing yonder, 

Without a single blot or blunder, 

Would not bear away the palm from 

mine, 
If we should compare them line for line. 

There, now, is an initial letter ! 

Saint Ulric himself never made a better ! 

Finished down to the leaf and the snail, 

Down to the eyes on the peacock's tail ! 

And now, as I turn the volume over, 

And see what lies between cover and cover, 

What treasures of art these pages hold, 

All ablaze with crimson and gold, 

God forgive me ! I seem to feel 

A certain satisfaction steal 

Into my heart, and into my brain. 

As if my talent had not lain 

Wrapped in a napkin, and all in vain. 

Yes, I might almost say to the Lord, 

Here is a copy of thy Word, 

Written out with much toil and pain ; 

Take it, O Lord, and let it be 

As something I have done for thee ! 

He looks from the window. 
How sweet the air is ! How fair the 

scene ! 
I wish I had as lovely a green 
To paint my landscapes and my leaves ! 
How the swallows twitter under the eaves ! 
There, now, there is one in her nest ; 
i can just catch a glimpse of her head and 

breast, 
And will sketch her thus, in her quiet 

nook, 
For the margin of my Gospel book. 

He makes a sketch. 
I can see no more. Through the valley 

yonder 
A shower is passing ; I hear the thunder 
Mutter its curses in the air, 
The devil's own and only prayer ! 
The dusty road is brown with rain, 
And, speeding on with might and main, 
Ritherward rides a gallant train. 
They do not parley, they cannot wait, 
But hurry in at the convent gate. 
W T hat a fair lady ! and beside her 
What a handsome, graceful, noble rider I 
Now she gives him Ik, hand to alight ; 
They will beg a shelter for the night, 
i will go down to the corridor, 



And try to see that face once more ; 

It will do for the face of some beautiful 

Saint, 
Or for one of the Maries I shall paint. 

Goes out. 



THE CLOISTERS. 



The Abbot Ernestus pacing to andfrck 



Slowly, slowly up the wall 
Steals the sunshine, steals the shade ; 
Evening damps begin to fall, 
Evening shadows are displayed. 
Round me, o'er me, everywhere, 
All the sky is grand with clouds, 
And athwart the evening air 
W T heel the swallows home in crowds. 
Shafts of sunshine from the west 
Paint the dusky windows red ; 
Darker shadows, deeper rest, 
Underneath and overhead. 
Darker, darker, and more wan, 
In my breast the shadows fall ; 
Upward steals the life of man, 
As the sunshine from the wall. 
From the wall into the sky, 
From the roof aiong the spire ; 
Ah, the souls of those that die 
Are but sunbeams lifted higher. 
Enter Prince Henry. 



PRINCE HENRY. 

Christ is arisen ! 

ABBOT. 

Amen ! He is arii 
His peace be with you ! 



- 



PRINCE HENRY. 

Here it reigns forever!' 
The peace of God, that passeth understand- i, 

ing, 
Reigns in these cloisters and these corri- 
dors. 
Are you Ernestus, Abbot of the convent ? 



I am. 

PRINCE HENRY, 

And I Prince Henry of Hoheneck 
Who crave your hospitality to-night. 



THE GOLDEN LEGEND 



44* 



ABBOT. 

You are thrice welcome to our humble 

walls. 
You do us honor ; and we shall requite it, 
I fear, but poorly, entertaining you 
With Paschal eggs, and our poor convent 

wine, 
The remnants of our Easter holidays. 

PRINCE HENRY. 

How fares it with the holy monks of Hir- 

schau ? 
Are all things well with them ? 



All things are well. 

PRINCE HENRY. 

A noble convent ! I have known it long 
By the report of travellers. I now see 
Their commendations lag behind the truth. 
You lie here in the valley of the Nagold 
As in a nest : and the still river, gliding 
Along its bed, is like an admonition 
i Ho.v all things pass. Your lands are rich 
and ample, 
And your revenues large. God's benedic- 
tion 
Rests on your convent. 

ABBOT. 

By our charities 
We strive to merit it. Our Lord and Mas- 
ter, 
When He departed, left us in his will, 
As our best legacy on earth, the poor ! 
These we have always with us ; had we 

not, 
Our hearts would grow as hard as are these 
stones. 

PRINCE HENRY. 

If I remember right, the Counts of Calva 
i Founded your convent. 

ABBOT. 

Even as you say. 

PRINCE HENRY. 

And, if I err not, it is very old. 

ABBOT. 

Within these cloisters lie already buried 



Twelve holy Abbots, 
flags 



Underneath the 



On which we stand, the Abbot Williar 

lies, 
Of blessed memory. 

PRINCE HENRY. 

And whose tomb is that] 
Which bears the brass escutcheon ? 

ABBOT. 

A benefactor's, 
Conrad, a Count of Calva, he who stood 
Godfather to our bells. 

PRINCE HENRY. 

Your monks are learned 
And holy men, I trust. 

ABBOT. 

There are among them 
Learned and holy men. Yet in this age 
We need another Hildebrand, to shake 
And purify us like a mighty wind. 
The world is wicked, and sometimes I won- 
der 
God does not lose his patience with it 

wholly, 
And shatter it like glass ! Even here, at 

times, 
Within these walls, where all should be at 

peace, 
I have my trials. Time has laid his hand 
Upon my heart, gently, not smiting it, 
But as a harper lays his open palm 
Upon his harp, to deaden its vibrations. 
Ashes are on my head, and on my lips 
Sackcloth, and in my breast a heaviness 
And weariness of life, that makes me ready 
To say to the dead Abbots under us, 
" Make room for me ! " Only I see the 

dusk 
Of evening twilight coming, and have not 
Completed half my task ; and so at times 
The thought of my shortcomings in this 

life 
Falls like a shadow on the life to come. 

PRINCE HENRY. 

We must all die, and not the old alone ; 
The young have no exemption from thai 
doom. 

ABBOT. 

Ah, yes ! the young may die, but the olcf 

must ! 
That is the difference. 



442 



CHRISTUS: A MYSTERY 



PRINCE HENRY. 

I have heard much laud 
Of your transcribers. Your Scriptorium 
Is famous among all ; your manuscripts 
Praised for their beauty and their excel- 
lence. 

ABBOT. 

That is indeed our boast. If you desire 

it, 
You shall behold these treasures. And 

meanwhile 
Shall the Refectorarius bestow 
Your horses and attendants for the night. 
They go in. The Vesper-bell rings. 



THE CHAPEL. 

Vespers ; after ivhich the monks retire, a chorister 
leading an old monk who is blind. 

PRINCE HENRY. 

They are all gone, save one who lingers, 
Absorbed in deep and silent prayer. 
As if his heart could find no rest, 
At times he beats his heaving breast 
With clenched and convulsive fingers, 
Then lifts them trembling in the air. 
A chorister, with golden hair, 
Guides hitherward his heavy pace. 
Can it be so ? Or does my sight 
Deceive me in the uncertain light ? 
Ah no ! I recognize that face, 
Though Time has touched it in his flight, 
And changed the auburn hair to white. 
It is Count Hugo of the Rhine, 
The deadliest foe of all our race, 
And hateful unto me and mine ! 

THE BLIND MONK. 

Who is it that doth stand so near 
His whispered words I almost hear ? 

PRINCE HENRY. 

I am Prince Henry of Hoheneck, 
And you, Count Hugo of the Rhine i 
I know you, and I see the scar, 
The brand upon your forehead, shine 
And redden like a baleful star ! 

THE BLIND MONK. 

Count Hugo once, but now the wreck 
Of what I was. O Hoheneck i 



The passionate will, the pride, the wrath 

That bore me headlong on my path, 

Stumbled and staggered into fear, 

And failed me in my mad career, 

As a tired steed some evil-doer, 

Alone upon a desolate moor, 

Bewildered, lost, deserted, blind, 

And hearing loud and close behind 

The o'ertaking steps of his pursuer. 

Then suddenly from the dark there came 

A voice that called me by my name, 

And said to me, " Kneel down and pray I s 

And so my terror passed away, 

Passed utterly away forever. 

Contrition, penitence, remorse, 

Came on me, with o'erwhelming force ; 

A hope, a longing, an endeavor, 

By days of penance and nights of prayer, 

To frustrate and defeat despair ! 

Calm, deep, and still is now my heart,, 

With tranquil waters overflowed ; 

A lake whose unseen fountains start, 

Where once the hot volcano glowed. 

And you, O Prince of Hoheneck ! 

Have known me in that earlier time, 

A man of violence and crime, 

Whose passions brooked no curb nor check. 

Behold me now, in gentler mood, 

One of this holy brotherhood. 

Give me your hand ; here let me kneel ; 

Make your reproaches sharp as steel ; 

Spurn me, and smite me on each cheek ; 

No violence can harm the meek, 

There is no wound Christ cannot heal ! 

Yes ; lift your princely hand, and take 

Revenge, if 't is revenge you seek ; 

Then pardon me, for Jesus' sake ! 

PRINCE HENRY. 

Arise, Count Hugo ! let there be 
No further strife nor enmity 
Between us twain ; we both have erred ». 
Too rash in act, too wroth in word, 
From the beginning have we stood 
In fierce, defiant attitude, 
Each thoughtless of the other's right, 
And each reliant on his might. 
But now our souls are more subdued J 
The hand of God, and not in vain, 
Has touched us with the fire of pain. 
Let us kneel down and side by side 
Pray, till our souls are purified, 
And pardon will not be denied ! 
They kneel. 



THE GOLDEN LEGEND 



443 



THE REFECTORY. 

Gaudiolum of Monks at midnight. Lucifer 
disguised as a Friar. 

FRIAR PAUL SUigS. 

Ave ! color vini clari, 
Dulcis potus, non amari, 
Tua nos inebriari 
Digneris potentia ! 

FRIAR CUTHBERT. 

Not so much noise, my worthy freres, 
You '11 disturb the Abbot at his prayers. 

friar paul sings. 

O ! quam placens in colore ! 
O ! quam fragrans in odore ! 
O ! quam sapidum in ore ! 
Dulee linguae vinculum ! 

FRIAR CUTHBERT. 

1 should think your tongue had broken its 
chain ! 

friar paul sings. 

Felix venter quem intrabis ! 
Felix guttur quod rigabis ! 
Felix os quod tu lavabis ! 
Et beata labia ! 

FRIAR CUTHBERT. 



Peace ! I say, peace ! 



Will 



you never cease 



You will rouse up the Abbot, I tell you 
again ! 



FRIAR JOHN. 



No danger ! to-night he will let us alone, 
As I happen to know he has guests of his 



FRIAR CUTHBERT. 

Who are they ? 

FRIAR JOHN. 

A German Prince and his train, 
Who arrived here just before the rain. 
There is with him a damsel fair to see, 
As slender and graceful as a reed ! 
When she alighted from her steed, 
It seemed like a blossom blown from a 
tree. 



FRIAR CUTHBERT. 



None of your pale-faced girls for me ! 
None of your damsels of high degree ! 



FRIAR JOHN. 

Come, old fellow, drink down to your peg ! 
But do not drink any further, I beg ! 

friar paul, sings. 

In the days of gold, 
The days of old, 
Crosier of wood 
And bishop of gold ! 

FRIAR CUTHBERT. 

What an infernal racket and riot ! 
Can you not drink your wine in quiet ? 
Why fill the convent with such scandals, 
As if we were so many drunken Vandals ? 

friar paul, continues. 

Now we have changed 
That law so good 
To crosier of gold 
And bishop of wood ! 

FRIAR CUTHBERT. 

Well, then, since you are in the mood 

To give your noisy humors vent, 

Sing and howl to your heart's content ! 

CHORUS OF MONKS. 

Funde vinum. funde ! 
Tanquam sint fluminis undae, 
Nee quaeras unde, 
Sed fundas semper abunde ! 

FRIAR JOHN. 

What is the name of yonder friar, 

With an eye that glows like a coal of fire, 

And such a black mass of tangled hair ? 

FRIAR PAUL. 

He who is sitting there, 
With a rollicking, 
Devil may care, 
Free and easy look and air, 
As if he were used to such feasting ani 
frolicking: ? 



FRIAR JOHN. 



The same. 



444 



CHRISTUS: A MYSTERY 



FRIAB PAUL. 

He 's a stranger. You had better ask his 

name, 
And where he is going and whence he came. 

FRIAB JOHN. 

Hallo ! Sir Friar ! 

FRIAR PAUL. 

You must raise your voice a little higher, 
He does not seem to hear what you say. 
Now, try again ! He is looking this way. 

FRIAR JOHN. 

Hallo ! Sir Friar, 

We wish to inquire 

Whence you came, and where you are go- 
ing. 

And anything else that is worth the know- 
ing. 

So be so good as to open your head. 

LUCIFER. 

I am a Frenchman born and bred, 

Going on a pilgrimage to Rome. 

My home 

Is the convent of St. Gildas de Rhuys, 

Of which, very like, you never have heard. 

MONKS. 

Never a word ! 



You must know, then, it is in the diocese 

Called the Diocese of Vannes, 

In the province of Brittany. 

From the gray rocks of Morbihan 

It overlooks the angry sea ; 

The very sea-shore where, 

In his great despair, 

Abbot Abelard walked to and fro, 

Filling the night with woe. 

And wailing aloud to the merciless seas 

The name of his sweet Heloise, 

Whilst overhead 

The convent windows gleamed as red 

As the fiery eyes of the monks within, 

Who with jovial din 

Gave themselves up to all kinds of sin ! 

Ha ! that is a convent ! that is an abbey ! 

Over the doors, 

None of your death-heads carved in wood, 

None of your Saints looking pious and 

good, 
None of your Patriarchs old and shabby ! 



But the heads and tusks of boars, 

And the cells 

Hung all round with the fells 

Of the fallow-deer. 

And then what cheer ! 

What jolly, fat friars, 

Sitting round the great, roaring fires, 

Roaring louder than they, 

With their strong wines, 

And their concubines, 

And never a bell, 

With its swagger and swell, 

Calling yon up with a start of affright 

In the dead of night, 

To send yon grumbling down dark stairss* 

To mumble your prayers ; 

But the cheery crow 

Of cocks in the yard below, 

After daybreak, an hour or so, 

And the barking of deep-mouthed lionnds. 

These are the sounds 

That, instead of bells, salute the ear. 

And then all day 

Up and away 

Through the forest, hunting the deer ! 

Ah, my friends ! I 'm afraid that here 

You are a little too pious, a little too tame 

And the more is the shame. 

'T is the greatest folly 

Not to be jolly ; 

That 's what I think ! 

Come, drink, drink, 

Drink, and die game ! 

MONKS. 

And your Abbot What 's-his-nanie ? 

LUCIFER. 

Abelard ! 

MONKS. 

Did he drink hard ? 

LUCIFER. 

Oh, no ! Not he ! 

He was a dry old fellow, 

Without juice enough to get thoroughl 

mellow. 
There he stood, 

Lowering at us in sullen mood, 
As if he had come into Brittany 
Just to reform our brotherhood ! 

A roar of laughter. 
But you see 
It never would do ! 
For some of us knew a thing or two* 



THE GOLDEN LEGEND 



445 



In the Abbey of St. Gildas de Rhuys ' 
For instance, the great ado 
With old Fulbert's niece, 
The young and lovely Heloise. 

FRIAR JOHN. 

Stop there, if you please, 

Till we drink to the fair Heloise. 

ALL, drinking and shouting. 
Heloise ! Heloise ! 

The Chapel-bell tolls. 

lucifer, starting. 
What is that bell for ? Are you such asses 
As to keep up the fashion of midnight 
masses ? 

FRIAR CUTHBERT. 

It is only a poor, unfortunate brother, 
Who is gifted with most miraculous powers 
Of getting up at all sorts of hours, 
And, by way of penance and Christian 

meekness, 
Of creeping silently out of his cell 
To take a pull at that hideous bell ; 
So that all the monks who are lying awake 
May murmur some kind of prayer for his 

sake, 
And adapted to his peculiar weakness ! 

FRIAR JOHN. 

From frailty and fall — 

ALL. 

Good Lord, deliver us all ! 

FRIAR CUTHBERT. 

And before the bell for matins sounds, 

He takes his lantern, and goes the rounds, 

Flashing it into our sleepy eyes, 

Merely to say it is time to arise. 

But enough of that. Go on, if you please, 

With your story about St. Gildas de Rhuys. 

LUCIFER. 

Well, it finally came to pass 

That, half in fun and half in malice, 

One Sunday at Mass 

We put some poison into the chalice. 

But, either by accident or design, 

Peter Abelard kept away 

From the chapel that day, 

And a poor young friar, who in his stead 

Drank the sacramental wine, 



Fell on the steps of the altar, dead ! 
But look ! do you see at the window there 
That face, with a look of grief and despair, 
That ghastly face, as of one in pain ? 



Who? where? 

LUCIFER. 

As I spoke, it vanished away again. 

FRIAR CUTHBERT. 

It is that nefarious 

Siebald the Refectorarius. 

That fellow is always playing the scout, 

Creeping and peeping and prowling about 

And then he regales 

The Abbot with scandalous tales. 

LUCIFER. 

A spy in the convent ? One of the brother! 
Telling scandalous tales of the others ? 
Out upon him, the lazy loon ! 
I would put a stop to that pretty soon, 
In a way he should rue it. 

MONKS. 

How shall we do it ? 

LUCIFER. 

Do you, brother Paul, 

Creep under the window, close to the wall 

And open it suddenly when I call. 

Then seize the villain by the hair, 

And hold him there, 

And punish him soundly, once for all. 

FRIAR CUTHBERT. 

As St. Dunstan of old, 

We are told, 

Once caught the Devil by the 



Ha ! ha ! that story is very clever, 
But has no foundation whatsoever. 
Quick ! for I see his face again 
Glaring in at the window-pane ; 
Now ! now ! and do not spare your blows 

Friar Paul opens the windoio suddenly^ am 
seizes Siebald. 

Tliey beat him. 

FRIAR SIEBALD. 

Help ! help i are you going to slay me ? 



446 



CHRISTUS A MYSTERY 



FRIAR PAUL. 

That will teach you again to betray me ! 

FRIAR SIEBALD. 

Mercy ! mercy ! 

FRIAR PAUL, shouting and beating. 
Rumpas bellorum lorum 
Vim confer amorum 
Morum verorum rorum 
Tu plena polorum ! 



Who stands in the doorway yonder, 
Stretching out his trembling hand, 
Just as Abelard used to stand, 
The flash of his keen, black eyes 
Forerunning the thunder ? 

the monks, in confusion. 
The Abbot ! the Abbot ! 

FRIAR CUTHBERT. 

And what is the wonder ! 
He seems to have taken you by surprise. 

FRIAR FRANCIS. 

Hide the great flagon 

From the eyes of the dragon ! 

FRIAR CUTHBERT. 

Pull the brown hood over your face ! 
This will bring us into disgrace ! 

ABBOT. 

What means this revel and carouse ? 

Is this a tavern and drinking-house ? 

Are you Christian monks, or heathen devils, 

To pollute this convent with your revels ? 

Were Peter Damian still upon earth, 

To be shocked by such ungodly mirth, 

He would write your names, with pen of 

gall, 
In his Book of Gomorrah, one and all ! 
Away, you drunkards ! to your cells, 
And pray till you hear the matin-bells ; 
You, Brother Francis, and you, Brother 

Paul ! 
And as a penance mark each prayer 
With the scourge upon your shoulders 

bare ; 
Nothing atones for such a sin 
But the blood that follows the discipline. 
And you, Brother Cuthbert, come with me 
Alone into the sacristy ; 



You, who should be a guide to your bro 

thers, 
And are ten times worse than all the others s 
For you I'vea draught that has long been 

brewing, 
You shall do a penance worth the doing f 
Away to your prayers, then, one and all ! 
I wonder the very convent wall 
Does not crumble and crush you in its fall ! 

THE NEIGHBORING NUNNERY. 

The Abbess Irmingard sitting with Elsie in 
the moonlight. 

IRMINGARD. 

The night is silent, the wind is still, 
The moon is looking from yonder hill 
Down upon convent, and grove, and garden ; 
The clouds have passed away from her face, 
Leaving behind them no sorrowful trace, 
Only the tender and quiet grace 
Of one whose heart has been healed with 
pardon ! 

And such am I. My soul within 
Was dark with passion and soiled with sin. 
But now its wounds are healed again ; 
Gone are the anguish, the terror, and pain ; 
For across that desolate land of woe, 
O'er whose burning sands I was forced to 

go, 
A wind from heaven began to blow ; 
And all my being trembled and shook, 
As the leaves of the tree, or the grass of 

the field, 
And I was healed, as the sick are healed, 
When fanned by the leaves of the Holj 

Book ! 

As thou sittest in the moonlight there, 
Its glory flooding thy golden hair, 
And the only darkness that which lies 
In the haunted chambers of thine eyes, 
I feel my soul drawn unto thee, 
Strangely, and strongly, and more 

more, 
As to one I have known and loved befoi 
For every soul is akin to me 
That dwells in the land of mystery I 
I am the Lady Irmingard, 
Born of a noble race and name ! 
Many a wandering Suabian bard, 
Whose life was dreary, and bleak, and hs 
Has found through me the way to fame. 



THE GOLDEN LEGEND 



447 



Brief and bright were those days, and the 

night 
Which followed was full of a lurid light. 
Love, that of every woman's heart 
Will have the whole, and not a part, 
That is to her, in Nature's plan, 
More than ambition is to man, 
Her light, her life, her very breath, 
With no alternative but death, 
Found me a maiden soft and young, 
Just from the convent's cloistered school, 
And seated on my lowly stool, 
Attentive while the minstrels sung. 

Gallant, graceful, gentle, tall, 

Fairest, noblest, best of all, 

Was Walter of the Vogelweid ; 

And, whatsoever may betide, 

Still I think of him with pride ! 

His song was of the summer-time, 

The very birds sang in his rhyme ; 

The sunshine, the delicious air, 

The fragrance of the flowers, were there ; 

And I grew restless as I heard, 

Restless and buoyant as a bird, 

Down soft, aerial currents sailing, 

O'er blossomed orchards, and fields in 

bloom, 
And through the momentary gloom 
Of shadows o'er the landscape trailing, 
Yielding and borne I knew not where, 
But feeling resistance unavailing. 

And thus, unnoticed and apart, 
And more by accident than choice, 
I listened to that single voice 
Until the chambers of my heart 
Were filled with it by night and day. 
One night, — it was a night in May, — 
Within the garden, unawares, 
Under the blossoms in the gloom, 
I heard it utter my own name 
With protestations and wild prayers ; 
And it rang through me, and became 
Like the archangel's trump of doom, 
Which the soul hears, and must obey ; 
And mine arose as from a tomb. 
My former life now seemed to me 
Such as hereafter death may be, 
When in the great Eternity 
We shall awake and find it day. 

It was a dream, and would not stay ; 
A dream, that in a single night 
Faded and vanished out of sight. 



My father's anger followed fast 
This passion, as a freshening blast 
Seeks out and fans the fire, whose rage 
It may increase, but not assuage. 
And he exclaimed : " No wandering bard 
Shall win thy hand, O Irmingard ! 
For which Prince Henry of Hoheneck 
By messenger and letter sues." 

Gently, but firmly, I replied : 

" Henry of Hoheneck I discard ! 

Never the hand of Irmingard 

Shall lie in his as the hand of a bride f w 

This said I, Walter, for thy sake ; 

This said I, for I could not chooseo 

After a pause, my father spake 

In that cold and deliberate tone 

Which turns the hearer into stone, 

And seems itself the act to be 

That follows with such dread certainty : 

" This or the cloister and the veil ! " 

No other words than these he said, 

But they were like a funeral wail ; 

My life was ended, my heart was dead. 

That night from the castle -gate went 

down, 
With silent, slow, and stealthy pace, 
Two shadows, mounted on shadowy steeds, 
Taking the narrow path that leads 
Into the forest dense and brown, 
In the leafy darkness of the place, 
One could not distinguish form nor face, 
Only a bulk without a shape, 
A darker shadow in the shade ; 
One scarce could say it moved or stayed. 
Thus it was we made our escape ! 
A foaming brook, with many a bound, 
Followed us like a playful hound ; 
Then leaped before us, and in the hollow 
Paused, and waited for us to follow, 
And seemed impatient, and afraid 
That our tardy flight should be betrayed 
By the sound our horses' hoof-beats made, 
And when we reached the plain below, 
We paused a moment and drew rein 
To look back at the castle again ; 
And we saw the windows all aglow 
With lights, that were passing to and fro ; 
Our hearts with terror ceased to beat ; 
The brook crept silent to our feet ; 
We knew what most we feared to know. 
Then suddenly horns began to blow ; 
And we heard a shout, and a heavy 

tramp, 



448 



CHRISTUS : A MYSTERY 



And our horses snorted in the damp 
Night-air of the meadows green and wide, 
And in a moment, side by side, 
So close, they must have seemed but one, 
The shadows across the moonlight run, 
And another came, and swept behind, 
Like the shadow of clouds before the 
wind ! 

How I remember that breathless flight 
Across the moors, in the summer night ! 
How under our feet the long, white road 
Backward like a river flowed, 
Sweeping with it fences and hedges, 
Whilst farther away and overhead, 
Paler than I, with fear and dread, 
The moon fled with us as we fled 
Along the forest's jagged edges ! 

All this I can remember well ; 

But of what afterwards befell 

I nothing further can recall 

Than a blind, desperate, headlong fall ; 

The rest is a blank and darkness all. 

When I awoke out of this swoon, 

The sun was shining, not the moon, 

Making a cross upon the wall 

With the bars of my windows narrow and 

tall ; 
And I prayed to it, as I had been wont to 

pray, 
From early childhood, day by day, 
Each morning, as in bed I lay ! 
I was lying again in my own room ! 
And 1 thanked God, in my fever and pain, 
That those shadows on the midnight plain 
Were gone, and could not come again J 
I struggled no longer with my doom ! 

This happened many years ago. 
I left my father's home to come 
Like Catherine to her martyrdom, 
For blindly I esteemed it so. 
And when I heard the convent door 
Behind me close, to ope no more, 
I felt it smite me like a blow. 
Through all my limbs a shudder ran, 
And on my bruised spirit fell 
The dampness of my narrow cell 
As night-air on a wounded man, 
Giving intolerable pain. 

But now a better life began. 

I felt the agony decrease 

By slow degrees, then wholly cease, 



Ending in perfect rest and peace ! 

It was not apathy, nor dulness, 

That weighed and pressed upon m^ 

brain, 
But the same passion I had given 
To earth before, now turned to heaven 
With all its overflowing fulness. 

Alas ! the world is full of peril ! 

The path that runs through the fairest 

meads, 
On the sunniest side of the valley, leads 
Into a region bleak and sterile ! 
Alike in the high-born and the lowly, 
The will is feeble, and passion strong. 
We cannot sever right from wrong ; 
Some falsehood mingles with all truth j 
Nor is it strange the heart of youth 
Should waver and comprehend but slowly 
The things that are holy and unholy I 
But in this sacred, calm retreat, 
We are all well and safely shielded 
From winds that blow, and waves that 

beat, 
From the cold, and rain, and blighting 

heat, 
To which the strongest hearts have 

yielded. 
Here we stand as the Virgins Seven, 
For our celestial bridegroom yearning j 
Our hearts are lamps forever burning, 
With a steady and unwavering flame, 
Pointing upward, forever the same, 
Steadily upward toward the heaven 1 

The moon is hidden behind a cloud ; 

A sudden darkness fills the room, 

And thy deep eyes, amid the gloom, 

Shine like jewels in a shroud. 

On the leaves is a sound of falling rain ; 

A bird, awakened in its nest, 

Gives a faint twitter of unrest, 

Then smooths its plumes and sleeps 

again. 
No other sounds than these I hear ; 
The hour of midnight must be near. 
Thou art o'erspent with the day's fatigue 
Of riding many a dusty league ; 
Sink, then, gently to thy slumber ; 
Me so many cares encumber, 
So many ghosts, and forms of fright, 
Have started from their graves to-night, 
They have driven sleep from mine eyes 

away : 
1 will go down to the chapel and pray. 



THE GOLDEN LEGEND 



449 



A COVERED BRIDGE AT LUCERNE 

PRINCE HENRY. 

God's blessing on the architects who build 
The bridges o'er swift rivers and abysses 
Before impassable to human feet, 
No less than on the builders of cathedrals, 
Whose massive walls are bridges thrown 

across 
The dark and terrible abyss of Death. 
Well has the name of Pontifex been given 
Unto the Church's head, as the chief builder 
And architect of the invisible bridge 
That leads from earth to heaven. 

ELSIE. 

How dark it grows ! 
What are these paintings on the walls 
around us ? 

PRINCE HENRY. 

The Dance Macaber ! 

ELSIE. 

What? 

PRINCE HENRY. 

The Dance of Death ! 
All that go to and fro must look upon it, 
Mindful of what they shall be, while be- 
neath, 
Among the wooden piles, the turbulent 

river 
Rushes, impetuous as the river of life, 
With dimpling eddies, ever green and 

bright, 
Save where the shadow of this bridge falls 
on it. 

ELSIE. 

Oh yes ! I see it now ! 

PRINCE HENRY. 

The grim musician 
Leads all men through the mazes of that 

dance, 
To different sounds in different measures 

moving ; 
Sometimes he plays a lute, sometimes a 

dram, 
To tempt or terrify. 

ELSIE. 

What is this picture ? 



PRINCE HENRY. 

It is a young man singing to a nun, 

Who kneels at her devotions, but in kneel- 
ing 

Turns round to look at him ; and Death, 
meanwhile, 

Is putting out the candles on the altar ! 



Ah, what a pity 't is that she should listen 
Unto such songs, when in her orisons 
She might have heard in heaven the angels 
singing ! 

PRINCE HENRY. 

Here he has stolen a jester's cap and bells, 
And dances with the Queen. 

ELSIE. 

A foolish jest J 

PRINCE HENRY. 

And here the heart of the new- wedded 

wife, 
Coming from church with her beloved 

lord, 
He startles with the rattle of his drum. 

ELSIE. 

Ah, that is sad ! And yet perhaps 't is 

best 
That she should die, with all the sunshine 

on her, 
And all the benedictions of the morning, 
Before this affluence of golden light 
Shall fade into a cold and clouded gray, 
Then into darkness ! 

PRINCE HENRY. 

Under it is written, 
" Nothing but death shall separate thee 
and me ! " 

ELSIE. 

And what is this, that follows close upon it ? 

PRINCE HENRY. 

Death, playing on a dulcimer. Behind 
him, 

A poor old woman, with a rosary, 

Follows the sound, and seems to wish her 
feet 

Were swifter to o'ertake him. Under- 
neath, 

The inscription reads, " Better is Death 
than Lif«." 



45© 



CHRISTUS: A MYSTERY 



ELSIE. 

Better is Death than Life ! Ah yes ! to 

thousands 
Death plays upon a dulcimer, and sings 
That song of consolation, till the air 
Rings with it, and they cannot choose hut 

follow 
Whither he leads. And not the old alone, 
But the young also hear it, and are still. 

PRINCE HENRY. 

Yes, in their sadder moments. 'T is the 
sound 

Of their own hearts they hear, half full of 
tears, 

Which are like crystal cups, half filled with 
water, 

Responding to the pressure of a finger 

With music sweet and low and melan- 
choly. 

Let us go forward, and no longer stay 

In this great picture-gallery of Death ! 

I hate it ! ay, the very thought of it ! 

ELSIE. 

Why is it hateful to you ? 

PRINCE HENRY. 

For the reason 
That life, and all that speaks of life, is 

lovely, 
And death, and all that speaks of death, is 

hateful. 



The grave itself is but a covered bridge, 
Leading from light to light, through a brief 
darkness ! 

prince henry, emerging from the bridge. 
I breathe again more freely ! Ah, how 

pleasant 
To come once more into the light of day, 
Out of that shadow of death ! To hear 

again 
The hoof-beats of our horses on firm 

ground, 
And not upon those hollow planks, resound- 

With a sepulchral echo, like the clods 
On coffins in a churchyard ! Yonder lies 
The Lake of the Four Forest-Towns, ap- 
parelled 
Id light, and lingering, like a village 
maiden, 



Hid in the bosom of her native mountains, 
Then pouring all her life into another's, 
Changing her name and being ! Oven 

head, 
Shaking his cloudy tresses loose in air, 
Rises Pilatus, with his windy pines. 
They pass on. 

THE DEVIL'S BRIDGE. 

Prince Henry and Elsie crossing with attend 
ants. 



This bridge is called the Devil's Bridge. 
With a single arch, from ridge to ridge, 
It leaps across the terrible chasm 
Yawning beneath us, black and deep, 
As if, in some convulsive spasm, 
The summits of the hills had cracked, 
And made a road for the cataract 
That raves and rages down the steep ! 

lucifer, under the bridge. 
Ha ! ha ! 

GUIDE. 

Never any bridge but this 

Could stand across the wild abyss ; 

All the rest, of wood or stone, 

By the Devil's hand were overthrown. 

He toppled crags from the precipice, 

And whatsoe'er was built by day 

In the night was swept away ; 

None could stand but this alone. 

lucifer, under the bridge. 
Ha ! ha ! 

guide. 

I showed you in the valley a bowlder 
Marked with the imprint of his shoulder 
As he was bearing it up this way, 
A peasant, passing, cried, " Herr Je* ! " 
And the Devil dropped it in his fright, 
And vanished suddenly out of sight ! 

lucifer, under the bridge. 
Ha ! ha ! 

GUIDE. 

Abbot Giraldus of Einsiedel, 

For pilgrims on their way to Rome, 

Built this at last, with a single arch. 

Under which, on its endless march, 

Runs the river, white with foam, 

Like a thread through the eye of a neec 

And the Devil promised to let it stand, 



THE GOLDEN LEGEND 



4%\ 



Under compact and condition 
That the first living thing which crossed 
Should be surrendered into his hand, 
And be beyond redemption lost. 

lucifer, under the bridge. 
Ha ! ha ! perdition ! 

GUIDE. 

At length, the bridge being all completed, 

The Abbot, standing at its head, 

Threw across it a loaf of bread, 

Which a hungry dog sprang after, 

And the rocks reechoed with the peals of 

laughter 
To see the Devil thus defeated ! 
They pass on. 

lucifer, under the bridge. 
Ha ! ha ! defeated ! 
For journeys and for crimes like this 
I let the bridge stand o'er the abyss ! 



THE ST. GOTHARD PASS. 
PRINCE HENRY. 

This is the highest point. Two ways the 

rivers 
Leap down to different seas, and as they 

roll 
Grow deep and still, and their majestic 

presence 
Becomes a benefaction to the towns 
They visit, wandering silently among 

them, 
Like patriarchs old among their shining 

tents. 

ELSIE. 

How bleak and bare it is ! Nothing but 

mosses 
Grow on these rocks. 

PRINCE HENRY. 

Yet are they not forgotten ; 
Beneficent Nature sends the mists to feed 
them. 



See yonder little cloud, that, borne aloft 
So tenderly by the wind, floats fast away 
Over the snowy peaks ! It seems to me 
The body of St. Catherine, borne by an- 
gels I 



PRINCE HENRY. 

Thou art St. Catherine, and invisible 
angels 

Bear thee across these chasms and preci- 
pices, 

Lest thou shouldst dash thy feet against a 
stone ! 

ELSIE. 

Would I were borne unto my grave, as she 

was, 
Upon angelic shoulders ! Even now 
I seem uplifted by them, light as air ! 
What sound is that ? 

PRINCE HENRY. 

The tumbling avalanches I 

ELSIE. 

How awful, yet how beautiful ! 

PRINCE HENRY. 

These are 
The voices of the mountains ! Thus they 

ope 
Their snowy lips, and speak unto each 

other, 
In the primeval language, lost to man. 

ELSIE. 

What land is this that spreads itself beneath 
us? 

PRINCE BENRY. 

Italy ! Italy ! 

ELSIE. 

Land of the Madonna 
How beautiful it is ! It seems a garden 
Of Paradise ! 

PRINCE HENRY. 

Nay, of Gethsemane 
To thee and me, of passion and of prayer ! 
Yet once of Paradise. Long years ago 
I wandered as a youth among its bowers, 
And never from my heart has faded quite 
Its memory, that, like a summer sunset, 
Encircles with a ring of purple light 
All the horizon of my youth. 

guide. 

O friends ! 
The days are short, the way before us 

long; 
We must not linger, if we think to reach 
The inn at Belinzona before vespers ! 
They pass on. 



453 



CHRISTUS: A MYSTERY 



AT THE FOOT OF THE ALPS. 
A halt under the trees at noon, 

PRINCE HENRY. 

Here let us pause a moment in the trem- 
bling 

Shadow and sunshine of the roadside trees, 

And, our tired horses in a group assembling, 

Inhale long draughts of this delicious 
breeze. 

Our fleeter steeds have distanced our at- 
tendants ; 

They lag behind us with a slower pace ; 

We will await them under the green pen- 
dants 

Of the great willows in this shady place. 

Ho, Barbarossa ! how thy mottled haunches 

Sweat with this canter over hill and glade ! 

Stand still, and let these overhanging 
branches 

Fan thy hot sides and comfort thee with 
shade ! 

ELSIE. 

What a delightful landscape spreads before 

us, 
Marked with a whitewashed cottage here 

and there ! 
And, in luxuriant garlands drooping o'er 

us, 
Blossoms of grape-vines scent the sunny air. 

PRINCE HENRY. 

Hark ! what sweet sounds are those, whose 

accents holy 
Fill the warm noon with music sad and 

sweet ! 

ELSIE. 

It is a band of pilgrims, moving slowly 
On their long journey, with uncovered feet. 

pilgrims, chanting the Hymn of St. Hildehert. 
Me receptet Sion ilia, 
Sion David, urbs tranquilla, 
Cujus faber auctor lucis, 
Cujus porta? lignum crucis, 
Cujus claves lingua Petri, 
Cujus cives semper Iseti, 
Cujus muri lapis vivus, 
Cujus custos Rex festivus ! 

lucifer, as a Friar in the procession. 
Here am I, too, in the pious band, 
In the garb of a barefooted Carmelite 
dressed ! 



The soles of my feet are as hard and tanned 

As the conscience of old Pope Hildebrand ? 

The Holy Satan, who made the wives 

Of the bishops lead such shameful lives. 

All day long I beat my breast, 

And chant with a most particular zest 

The Latin hymns, which I understand 

Quite as well, I think, as the rest. 

And at night such lodging in barns and 

sheds, 
Such a hurly-burly in country inns, 
Such a clatter of tongues in empty heads, 
Such a helter-skelter of prayers and sins ! 
Of all the contrivances of the time 
For sowing broadcast the seeds of crime. 
There is none so pleasing to me and mine 
As a pilgrimage to some far-off shrine ! 

PRINCE HENRY. 

If from the outward man we judge tha 

inner, 
And cleanliness is godliness, I fear 
A hopeless reprobate, a hardened sinner, 
Must be that Carmelite now passing near. 



There is my German Prince again, 

Thus far on his journey to Salern, 

And the lovesick girl, whose heated brain. 

Is sowing the cloud to reap the rain ; 

But it 's a long road that has no turn ! 

Let them quietly hold their way, 

I have also a part in the play. 

But first I must act to my heart's content 

This mummery and this merriment, 

And drive this motley flock of sheep 

Into the fold, where drink and sleep 

The jolly old friars of Benevent. 

Of a truth, it often provokes me to laugh 

To see these beggars hobble along, 

Lamed and maimed, and fed upon chaff, 

Chanting their wonderful piff and paff, 

And, to make up for not understanding the 

song, 
Singing it fiercely, and wild, and strong ! 
Were it not for my magic garters and staff. 
And the goblets of goodly wine I quaff, 
And the mischief I make in the idle throng, 
I should not continue the business long. 

pilgrims, chanting. 
In hac urbe, lux solennis, 
Ver seternum, pax perennis ; 
In hac odor implens cselos, 
In hac semper festuin melos I 



THE GOLDEN LEGEND 



453 



PRINCE HENRY. 

Pc you observe that mouk among the train, 
Who pours from his great throat the roar- 
ing bass, 
As a cathedral spout pours out the rain, 
And this way turns his rubicund, round 
face? 

ELSIE. 

It is the same who, on the Strasburg square, 
Preached to the people in the open air. 

PRINCE HENRY. 

And he has crossed o'er mountain, field, and 

fell, 
On that good steed, that seems to bear him 

well, 
The hackney of the Friars of Orders Gray, 
His own stout legs ! He, too, was in the 

P^y, 
Both as King Herod and Ben Israel. 
Good morrow, Friar ! 

FRIAR CUTHBERT. 

Good morrow, noble Sir ! 

PRINCE HENRY. 

I speak in German, for, unless I err, 
You are a German. 

FRIAR CUTHBERT. 

I cannot gainsay you. 
But by what instinct, or what secret sign, 
Meeting me here, do you straightway 

divine 
That northward of the Alps my country 

lies? 

PRINCE HENRY. 

Your accent, like St. Peter's, would betray 

you, 
Did not your yellow beard and your blue 

eyes. 
Moreover, we have seen your face before, 
And heard you preach at the Cathedral 

door 
On Easter Sunday, in the Strasburg square. 
We were among the crowd that gathered 

there, 
And saw you play the Rabbi with great 

skill, 
As if, by leaning o'er so many years 
To walk with little children, your own will 
Had caught a childish attitude from theirs, 
A kind of stooping in its form and gait, 



And could no longer stand erect and 

straight. 



When 



ce come 



you 



FRIAR CUTHBERT. 

From the old monastery 
Of Hirschau, in the forest ; being sent 
Upon a pilgrimage to Benevent, 
To see the image of the Virgin Mary, 
That moves its holy eyes, and sometimes 

speaks, 
And lets the piteous tears run down its 

cheeks, 
To touch the hearts of the impenitent. 

PRINCE HENRY. 

Oh, had I faith, as in the days gone by, 
That knew no doubt, and feared nc 
mystery ! 

lucifer, at a distance. 
Ho, Cuthbert ! Friar Cuthbert ! 

FRIAR CUTHBERT. 

Farewell, Prince ! 
I cannot stay to argue and convince. 

PRINCE HENRY. 

This is indeed the blessed Mary's land, 
Virgin and Mother of our dear Redeemer ! 
All hearts are touched and softened at her 

name, 
Alike the bandit, with the bloody hand, 
The priest, the prince, the scholar, and the 

peasant, 
The man of deeds, the visionary dreamer, 
Pay homage to her as one ever present ! 
And even as children, who have much 

offended 
A too indulgent father, in great shame, 
Penitent, and yet not daring unattended 
To go into his presence, at the gate 
Speak with their sister, and confiding wait 
Till she goes in before and intercedes ; 
So men, repenting of their evil deeds, 
And yet not venturing rashly to draw near 
With their requests an angry father's ear, 
Offer to her their prayers and their confes- 
sion, 
And she for them in heaven makes inter- 
cession. 
And if our Faith had given us nothing mcv» 
Than this example of all womanhood, 
So mild, so merciful, so strong, so good, 
So patient, peaceful, loyal, loving, pure. 



454 



CHRISTUS: A MYSTERY 



This were enough to prove it higher and 

truer 
Than all the creeds the world had known 

before. 

pilgrims, chanting afar off. 
Urbs ccElestis, urbs beata, 
Supra petram collocata, 
Urbs in portu satis tuto 
De longinquo te saluto, 
Te saluto, te suspiro, 
Te affecto, te requiro ! 



THE INN AT GENOA. 
A terrace overlooking the sea. Night. 

PRINCE HENRY. 

It is the sea, it is the sea, 

In all its vague immensity, 

Fading and darkening in the distance ! 

Silent, majestical, and slow, 

The white ships haunt it to and fro, 

With all their ghostly sails unfurled, 

As phantoms from another world 

Haunt the dim confines of existence ! 

But ah ! how few can comprehend 

Their signals, or to what good end 

From land to land they come and go ! 

Upon a sea more vast and dark 

The spirits of the dead embark, 

All voyaging to unknown coasts. 

We wave our farewells from the shore, 

And they depart, and come no more, 

Or come as phantoms and as ghosts. 

Above the darksome sea of death 

Looms the great life that is to be, 

A land of cloud and mystery, 

A dim mirage, with shapes of men 

Long dead, and passed beyond our ken. 

Awe-struck we gaze, and hold our breath 

Till the fair pageant vanisheth, 

Leaving us in perplexity, 

And doubtful whether it has been 

A vision of the world unseen, 

Or a bright image of our own 

Against the sky in vapors thrown. 

LUCIFER, singing from the sea. 

Thou didst not make it, thou canst not 

mend it, 
But thou hast the power to end it ! 
The sea is silent, the sea is discreet, 



Deep it lies at thy very feet ; 

There is no confessor like unto Death ! 

Thou canst not see him, but he is near ; 

Thou needst not whisper above thy breath 

And he will hear ; 

He will answer the questions, 

The vague surmises and suggestions, 

That fill thy soul with doubt and fear I 

PRINCE HENRY. 

The fisherman, who lies afloat, 
With shadowy sail, in yonder boat, 
Is singing softly to the Night ! 
But do I comprehend aright 
The meaning of the words he sung 
So sweetly in his native tongue ? 
Ah yes ! the sea is still and deep. 
All things within its bosom sleep ! 
A single step, and all is o'er ; 
A plunge, a bubble, and no more ; 
And thou, dear Elsie, wilt be free 
From martyrdom and agony. 

elsie, coming from her chamber upon the terrace 
The night is calm and cloudless, 
And still as still can be, 
And the stars come forth to listen 
To the music of the sea. 
They gather, and gather, and gather, 
Until they crowd the sky, 
And listen, in breathless silence, 
To the solemn litany. 
It begins in rocky caverns, 
As a voice that chants alone 
To the pedals of the organ 
In monotonous undertone ; 
And anon from shelving beaches, 
And shallow sands beyond, 
In snow-white robes uprising 
The ghostly choirs respond. 
And sadly and unceasing 
The mournful voice sings on, 
And the snow-white choirs still answer 
Christe eleison ! 

prince henry. 
Angel of God ! thy finer sense perceives 
Celestial and perpetual harmonies ! 
Thy purer soul, that trembles and believes, 
Hears the archangel's trumpet in i&e 

breeze, 
And where the forest rolls, or ocean heaves, 
Cecilia's organ sounding in the seas, 
And tongues of prophets speaking in the 

leaves. 



THE GOLDEN LEGEND 



455 



But I hear discord only and despair, 
And whispers as of demons in the air 1 



AT SEA. 



IL PADRONE. 



The wind upon our quarter lies, 
And on before the freshening gale, 
That fills the snow-white lateen sail, 
Swiftly our light felucca flies. 
Around, the billows burst and foam ; 
They lift her o'er the sunken rock, 
They beat her sides with many a shock, 
And then upon their flowing dome 
They poise her, like a weathercock ! 
Between us and the western skies 
The hills of Corsica arise ; 
Eastward, in yonder long blue line, 
The summits of the Apennine, 
And southward, and still far away, 
Salerno, on its sunny bay. 
You cannot see it, where it lies. 

PRINCE HENRY. 

Ah, would that never more mine eyes 
Might see its towers by night or day ! 

ELSIE. 

Behind us, dark and awfully, 
There comes a cloud out of the sea, 
That bears the form of a hunted deer, 
With hide of brown, and hoofs of black, 
And antlers laid upon its back, 
And fleeing fast and wild with fear, 
As if the hounds were on its track ! 

PRINCE HENRY. 

Lo ! while we gaze, it breaks and falls 

In shapeless masses, like the walls 

Of a burnt city. Broad and red 

The fires of the descending sun 

Glare through the windows, and o'erhead, 

Athwart the vapors, dense and dun, 

Long shafts of silvery light arise, 

Like rafters that support the skies f 

ELSIE. 

See ! from its summit the lurid levin 
Flashes downward without warning, 
As Lucifer, son of the morning, 
Fell from the battlements of heaven ! 

IL PADRONE. 

I must entreat you, friends, below ! 
The angry storm begins to blow, 



For the weather changes with the moon. 

All this morning, until noon, 

We had baffling winds, and sudden flaws 

Struck the sea with their cat's-paws. 

Only a little hour ago 

I was whistling to Saint Antonio 

For a capful of wind to fill our sail, 

And instead of a breeze he has sent a 

gale. 
Last night I saw Saint Elmo's stars, 
With their glimmering lanterns, all at play 
On the tops of the masts and the tips of the 

spars, 
And I knew we should have foul weather 

to-day. 
Cheerily, my hearties ! yo heave ho ! 
Brail up the mainsail, and let her go 
As the winds will and Saint Antonio ! 

Do you see that, Livornese felucca, 
That vessel to the windward yonder, 
Running with her gunwale under ? 
I was looking when the wind o'ertook her. 
She had all sail set, and the only wonder 
Is that at once the strength of the blast 
Did not carry away her mast. 
She is a galley of the Gran Duca, 
That, through the fear of the Algerines, 
Convoys those lazy brigantines, 
Laden with wine and oil from Lucca. 
Now all is ready, high and low ; 
Blow, blow, good Saint Antonio ! 

Ha ! that is the first dash of the rain, 
With a sprinkle of spray above the rails, 
Just enough to moisten our sails, 
And make them ready for the strain. 
See how she leaps, as the blasts o'ertake her, 
And speeds away with a bone in her mouth ! 
Now keep her head toward the south, 
And there is no danger of bank or breaker. 
With the breeze behind us, on we go ; 
Not too much, good Saint Antonio ! 



VI 

THE SCHOOL OF SALERNO 

A travelling Scholastic affixing his Theses to the 
gate of the College. 

SCHOLASTIC. 

There, that is my gauntlet, my banner, my 

shield, 
Hung up as a challenge to all the field ! 



456 



CHRISTUS: A MYSTERY 



One hundred and twenty-five propositions, 
Which I will maintain with the sword of 

the tongue 
Against all disputants, old and young. 
Let us see if doctors or dialecticians 
Will dare to dispute my definitions, 
Or attack any one of my learned theses. 
Here stand I ; the end shall be as God 

pleases. 
I think I have proved, by profound re- 
searches, 
The error of all those doctrines so vicious 
Of the old Areopagite Dionysius, 
That are making such terrible work in the 

churches, 
By Michael the Stammerer sent from the 

East, 
And done into Latin by that Scottish beast, 
Johannes Duns Scotus, who dares to main- 
tain, 
In the face of the truth, the error infer- 
nal, 
That the universe is and must be eternal ; 
At first laying down, as a fact fundamen- 
tal, 
That nothing with God can be accidental ; 
Then asserting that God before the crea- 
tion 
Could not have existed, because it is plain 
That, had He existed, He would have cre- 
ated ; 
W T hich is begging the question that should 

be debated, 
And moveth me less to anger than laugh- 
ter. 
All nature, he holds, is a respiration 
Of the Spirit of God, who, in breathing, 

hereafter- 
Will inhale it into his bosom again, 
So that nothing but God alone will remain. 
And therein he contradicteth himself ; 
For he opens the whole discussion by stat- 
ing* 
That God can only exist in creating. 
That question I think I have laid on the 
shelf ! 

He goes out. Two Doctors come in disputing, 
and followed by pupils. 

DOCTOR SERAFINO. 

I, with the Doctor Seraphic, maintain, 
That a word which is only conceived in the 

brain 
Is a type of eternal Generation ; 
The spoken word is the Incarnation. 



DOCTOR CHERUBINO. 

What do I care for the Doctor Seraphic, 
With all his wordy chaffer and traffic ? 

DOCTOR SERAFINO. 

You make but a paltry show of resistance \ 
Universals have no real existence ! 

DOCTOR CHERUBINO. 

Your words are but idle and empty chatter s 
Ideas are eternally joined to matter ! 

DOCTOR SERAFINO. 

May the Lord have mercy on your position. 
You wretched, wrangling culler of herbs ! 

DOCTOR CHERUBINO. 

May he send your soul to eternal perdition, 

For your Treatise on the Irregular Yerbs ! 

They rush outfighting. Tivo Scholars come in. 

FIRST SCHOLAR. 

Monte Cassino, then, is your College. 
What think you of ours here at Salern ? 

SECOND SCHOLAR. 

To tell the truth, I arrived so lately, 
I hardly yet have had time to discern. 
So much, at least, I am bound to acknow- 
ledge : 
The air seems healthy, the buildings stately, 
And on the whole I like it greatly. 

FIRST SCHOLAR. 

Yes, the air is sweet ; the Calabrian hills 
Send us down puffs of mountain air ; 
And in summer-time the sea-breeze fills 
With its coolness cloister, and court, and 

square. 
Then at every season of the year 
There are crowds of guests and travelle 

here ; 
Pilgrims, and mendicant friars, and trade 
From the Levant, with figs and wine, 
And bands of wounded and sick Crusade 
Coming back from Palestine. 

SECOND SCHOLAR. 

And what are the studies you pursue ? 
What is the course you here go through ? 

FIRST SCHOLAR. 

The first three years of the college course 
Are given to Logic alone, as the source 
Of all that is noble, and wise, and true. 



THE GOLDEN LEGEND 



457 



SECOND SCHOLAR. 

That seems rather strange, I must confess, 
In a Medical School ; yet, nevertheless, 
You doubtless have reasons for that. 

FIRST SCHOLAR. 

Oh yes ! 
For none but a clever dialectician 
Can hope to become a great physician ; 
That has been settled long ago. 
Logic makes an important part 
Of the mystery of the healing art ; 
For without it how could you hope to show 
That nobody knows so much as you know ? 
x\fter this there are five years more 
Devoted wholly to medicine, 
With lectures on chirurgical lore, 
And dissections of the bodies of swine, 
As likest the human form divine. 

SECOND SCHOLAR. 

What are the books now most in vogue ? 

FIRST SCHOLAR. 

Quite an extensive catalogue ; 
Mostly, however, books of our own ; 
As Gariopontus' Passionarius, 
And the writings of Matthew Platearius ; 
And a volume universally known 
As the Regimen of the School of Salem, 
For Hobert of Normandy written in terse 
And very elegant Latin verse. 
Each of these writings has its turn. 
And when at length we have finished these, 
Then comes the struggle for degrees, 
With all the oldest and ablest critics ; 
The public thesis and disputation, 
Question, and answer, and explanation 
Of a passage out of Hippocrates, 
Or Aristotle's Analytics. 
There the triumphant Magister stands ! 
A book is solemnly placed in his hands, 
On which he swears to follow the rule 
And ancient forms of the good old School ; 
To report if any confectionarius 
Mingles his drugs with matters various, 
And to visit his patients twice a day, 
And once in the night, if they live in town, 
And if they are poor, to take no pay. 
Having faithfully promised these, 
His head is crowned with a laurel crown ; 
A kiss on his cheek, a ring on his hand, 
The Magister Artium et Physices 
Goes forth from the school like a lord of 
the land. 



And now, as we have the whole morning 

before us, 
Let us go in, if you make no objection, 
And listen awhile to a learned prelection 
On Marcus Aurelius Cassiodorus. 

They go in. Enter Lucifer as a Doctor. 



This is the great School of Salern ! 

A land of wrangling and of quarrels, 

Of brains that seethe, and hearts that burn. 

Where every emulous scholar hears, 

In every breath that comes to his ears, 

The rustling of another's laurels ! 

The air of the place is called salubrious ; 

The neighborhood of Vesuvius lends it 

An odor volcanic, that rather mends it, 

And the buildings have an aspect lugubrious. 

That inspires a feeling of awe and terror 

Into the heart of the beholder, 

And befits such an ancient homestead of 

error, 
Where the old falsehoods moulder and 

smoulder, 
And yearly by many hundred hands 
Are carried away, in the zeal of youth, 
And sown like tares in the field of truth, 
To blossom and ripen in other lands. 

What have we here, affixed to the gate ? 
The challenge of some scholastic wight, 
Who wishes to hold a public debate 
On sundry questions wrong or right ! 
Ah, now this is my great delight ! 
For I have often observed of late 
That such discussions end in a fight. 
Let us see what the learned wag maintains 
With such a prodigal waste of brains. 

Reads. 
" Whether angels in moving from place to 

place 
Pass through the intermediate space. 
Whether God himself is the author of evil. 
Or whether that is the work of the Devil. 
When, where, and wherefore Lucifer fell; 
And whether he now is chained in hell." 
I think I can answer that question well ! 
So long as the boastful human mind 
Consents in such mills as this to grind, 
I sit very firmly upon my throne ! 
Of a truth it almost makes me laugh, 
To see men leaving the golden grain 
To gather in piles the pitiful chaff 
That old Peter Lombard thrashed with his 

brain, 



458 



CHRISTUS: A MYSTERY 



To have it caught up and tossed again 

On the horns of the Dumb Ox of Cologne ! 

Cut my guests approach ! there is in the 

air 
jfc. fragrance, like that of the Beautiful 

Garden 
Of Paradise, in the days that were ! 
An odor of innocence and of prayer, 
And of love, and faith that never fails, 
Such as the fresh young heart exhales 
Before it begins to wither and harden ! 
I cannot breathe such an atmosphere ! 
My soul is filled with a nameless fear, 
That, after all my trouble and pain, 
After all my restless endeavor, 
The youngest, fairest soul of the twain, 
The most ethereal, most divine, 
Will escape from my hands for ever and 

ever. 
But the other is already mine ! 
Let him live to corrupt his race, 
Breathing among them, with every breath, 
Weakness, selfishness, and the base 
And pusillanimous fear of death. 
I know his nature, and I know 
That of all who in my ministry 
Wander the great earth to and fro, 
And on my errands come and go, 
The safest and subtlest are such as he. 

Enter Prince Henry and Elsie, with attend- 
ants. 

PRINCE HENRY. 

Can you direct us to Friar Angelo ? 

LUCIFER. 

He stands before you. 

PRINCE HENRY. 

Then you know our purpose. 
[ am Prince Henry of Hoheneck, and this 
The maiden that I spake of in my letters. 



t is a very grave and solemn business ! 
We must not be precipitate. Does she 
Without compulsion, of her own free will, 
Consent to this ? 

PRINCE HENRY. 

Against all opposition, 
Against all prayers, entreaties, protesta- 
tions. 
She will not be persuaded. 



That is strange \ 
Have you thought well of it ? 

ELSIE. 

I come not here 
To argue, but to die. Your business is not 
To question, but to kill me. I am ready. 
I am impatient to be gone from here 
Ere any thoughts of earth disturb again 
The spirit of tranquillity within me. 

PRINCE HENRY. 

Would I had not come here ! Would I 
were dead, 

And thou wert in thy cottage in the for- 
est, 

And hadst not known me ! Why have I 
done this ? 

Let me go back and die. 

ELSIE. 

It cannot be ; 
Not if these cold, flat stones on which we 

tread 
Were coulters heated white, and yonder 

gateway 
Flamed like a furnace with a sevenfold 

heat. 
I must fulfil my purpose. 

PRINCE HENRY. 

I forbid it ! 
Not one step further. For I only meant 
To put thus far thy courage to the proof. 
It is enough. I, too, have strength to die, 
For thou hast taught me ! 



ELSIE. 

O my Prince ! remembei 
Your promises. Let me fulfil my errand. 
You do not look on life and death as I do. 
There are two angels, that attend unseen 
Each one of us, and in great books record 
Our good and evil deeds. He who writes 

down 
The good ones, after every action closes 
His volume, and ascends with it to God. 
The other keeps his dreadful day-book 

open 
Till sunset, that we may repent ; which 

doing, 
The record of the action fades away, 
And leaves a line of white across the page, 
Now if my act be good, as I believe, 






THE GOLDEN LEGEND 



459 



It cannot be recalled, It is already- 
Sealed up in heaven, as a good deed accom- 
plished. 
The rest is yours. Why wait you ? I am 
ready. 

To her attendants. 
Weep not, my friends ! rather rejoice with 

me. 
I shall not feel the pain, but shall be gone, 
And you will have another friend in 

heaven. 
Then start not at the creaking of the door 
Through which I pass. I see what lies be- 
yond it. 

To Prince Henry. 
And you, O Prince ! bear back my benison 
Unto my father's house, and all within it. 
This morning in the church I prayed for 

them, 
After confession, after absolution, 
When my whole soul was white, I prayed 

for them. 
God will take care of them, they need me 

not. 
And in your life let my remembrance linger, 
As something not to trouble and disturb it, 
But to complete it, adding life to life. 
And if at times beside the evening fire 
You see my face among the other faces, 
Let it not be regarded as a ghost 
That haunts your house, but as a guest 

that loves you. 
Nay, even as one of your own family, 
Without whose presence there were some- 
thing wanting. 
I have no more to say. Let us go in. 

PRINCE HENRY. 

Friar Angelo ! I charge you on your life, 
Believe not what she says, for she is mad, 
And comes here not to die, but to be 
healed. 

ELSIE. 

Alas ! Prince Henry ! 

LUCIFER. 

Come with me ; this way. 

Elsie goes in with Lucifer, who thrusts Prince 
Henry back and closes the door. 

PRINCE HENRY. 

Gone ! and the light of all my life gone with 

her ! 
A sudden darkness falls upon the world ! 



Oh, what a vile and abject thing am I 
That purchase length of days at such a 

cost ! 
Not by her death alone, but by the death 
Of all that 's good and true and noble ia 

me ! 
All manhood, excellence, and self-respect, 
All love, and faith, and hope, and heart 

are dead ! 
All my divine nobility of nature 
By this one act is forfeited forever. 
I am a Prince in nothing but in name ! 

To the attendants. 
Why did you let this horrible deed be 

done ? 
Why did you not lay hold on her, and keep 

her 
From self - destruction ? Angelo ! mur- 
derer ! 
Struggles at the door, but cannot open it 

elsie, within. 
Farewell, dear Prince ! farewell ! 

PRINCE HENRY. 

Unbar the door ! 

LUCIFER. 

It is too late ! 

PRINCE HENRY. 

It shall not be too late ! 
They burst the door open and rush in. 

THE FARM-HOUSE IN THE ODENWALD. 

Ursula spinning. A summer afternoon. A 
table spread. 



I have marked it well, — it must be true, — 
Death never takes one alone, but two ! 
Whenever he enters in at a door, 
Under roof of gold or roof of thatch, 
He always leaves it upon the latch, 
And comes again ere the year is o'er. 
Never one of a household only ! 
Perhaps it is a mercy of God, 
Lest the dead there under the sod, 
In the land of strangers, should be lonely I 
Ah me ! I think I am lonelier here ! 
It is hard to go, — but harder to stay ! 
Were it not for the children, I should pray 
That Death would take me within the 

year ! 
And Gottlieb ! — he is at work all day, 



460 



CHRISTUS: A MYSTERY 



In the sunny field, or the forest murk, 
But I know that his thoughts are far away, 
I know that his heart is not in his work ! 
And when he comes home to me at night 
He is not cheery, but sits and sighs, 
And I see the great tears in his eyes, 
And try to be cheerful for his sake. 
Only the children's hearts are light. 
Mine is weary, and ready to break. 
God help us ! I hope we have done right ; 
We thought we were acting for the best ! 

Looking through the open door. 
Who is it coming under the trees ? 
A man, in the Prince's livery dressed ! 
He looks about him with doubtful face, 
As if uncertain of the place. 
He stops at the beehives ; — now he sees 
The garden gate ; — he is going past ! 
Can he be afraid of the bees ? 
No ; he is coming in at last ! 
He fills my heart with strange alarm ! 
Enter a Forester. 

FORESTER. 

Is this the tenant Gottlieb's farm ? 

URSULA. 

This is his farm, and I his wife. 

Pray sit. What may your business be ! 

FORESTER. 

News from the Prince ! 



Of death or life ? 

FORESTER. 

ITou put your questions eagerly ! 

URSULA. 

Answer me, then ! How is the Prince ? 

FORESTER. 

I left him only two hours since 
Homeward returning down the river, 
As strong and well as if God, the Giver, 
Had given him back his youth again. 

Ursula, despairing. 
Then Elsie, my poor child, is dead I 

FORESTER. 

That, my good woman, I have not said. 
Don't cross the bridge till you come to it, 
Is a proverb old, and of excellent wit. 



URSULA. 

Keep me no longer in this pain ! 

FORESTER. 

It is true your daughter is no more ; — » 
That is, the peasant she was before. 

URSULA. 

Alas ! I am simple and lowly bred, 
I am poor, distracted, and forlorn. 
And it is not well that 3'ou of the court 
Should mock me thus, and make a sport 
Of a joyless mother whose child is dead, 
For you, too, were of mother born ! 

FORESTER. 

Your daughter lives, and the Prince is well! 
You will learn erelong how it all befell. 
Her heart for a moment never failed ; 
But when they reached Salerno's gate, 
The Prince's nobler self prevailed, 
And saved her for a noble fate. 
And he was healed, in his despair, 
By the touch of St. Matthew's sacred 

bones ; 
Though I think the long ride in the open 

air, 
That pilgrimage over stocks and stones, 
In the miracle must come in for a share ! 



Virgin ! who lovest the poor and lowly j 
If the loud cry of a mother's heart 
Can ever ascend to where thou art, 
Into thy blessed hands and holy 
Receive my prayer of praise and thai 

giving ! 

Let the hands that bore our Saviour bear 
Into the awful presence of God ; 
For thy feet with holiness are shod, 
And if thou bearest it He will hear it, 
Our child who was dead again is living 

FORESTER. 

I did not tell you she was dead ; 
If you thought so y t was no fault of mine 
At this very moment, while I speak, 
They are sailing homeward down the 

Rhine, 
In a splendid barge, with golden prow, 
And decked with banners white and red 
As the colors on your daughter's cheek. 
They call her the Lady Alicia now ; 
For the Prince in Salerno made a vow 
That Elsie only would he wed. 



THE GOLDEN LEGEND 



461 



URSULA. 

Jesu Maria ! what a change ! 

All seems to ine so weird and strange ! 

FORESTER. 

I saw her standing on the deck, 

Beneath an awning cool and shady ; 

Her cap of velvet could not hold 

The tresses of her hair of gold, 

That flowed and floated like the stream, 

And fell in masses clown her neck. 

As fair and lovely did she seem 

As in a story or a dream 

Some beautiful and foreign lady. 

And the Prince looked so grand and 

proud, 
And waved his hand thus to the crowd 
That gazed and shouted from the shore, 
All down the river, long and loud. 



We Khali behold our child once more ; 
She is not dead ! She is not dead ! 
God, listening, must have overheard 
The prayers, that, without sound or word, 
Our hearts in secrecy have said ! 
Oh, bring me to her ; for mine eyes 
Are hungry to behold her face ; 
My very soul within me cries ; 
My very hands seem to caress her, 
To see her, gaze at her, and bless her ; 
Dear Elsie, child of God and grace ! 
Goes out toward the garden. 

FORESTER. 

There goes the good woman out of her 
head ; 

And Gottlieb's supper is waiting here ; 

A very capacious flagon of beer, 

And a very portentous loaf of bread. 

One would say his grief did not much op- 
press him. 

Here 's to the health of the Prince, God 
bless him ! 



He drinks. 

Ha ! it buzzes and stings like a hornet ! 

through 



And 



the 



what a scene there, 
door ! 

The forest behind and the garden be- 
fore, 
And midway an old man of threescore, 
With a wife and children that caress 
him. 



Let me try still further to cheer and adorn 

it 
With a merry, echoing blast of my cornet ! 

Goes out blowing his horn. 

THE CASTLE OF VAUTSBERG ON THE 
RHINE. 

Prince Henry and Elsie standing on the ter 
race at evening. 

The sound of bells heard from a distance. 

PRINCE HENRY. 

We are alone. The wedding guests 
Ride down the hill, with plumes and cloaks. 
And the descending dark invests 
The Niederwald, and all the nests 
Among its hoar and haunted oaks. 



What bells are those, that ring so slow, 
So mellow, musical, and low ? 

PRINCE HENRY. 

They are the bells of Geisenheim, 
That with their melancholy chime 
Ring out the curfew of the sun. 



Listen, beloved. 

PRINCE HENRY. 

They are done I 
Dear Elsie ! many years ago 
Those same soft bells at eventide 
Rang in the ears of Charlemagne, 
As, seated by Fastrada's side 
At Ingelheim, in all his pride 
He heard their sound with secret pain. 



Their voices only speak to me 
Of peace and deep tranquillity, 
And endless confidence in thee ! 

PRINCE HENRY. 

Thou knowest the story of her ring, 
How, when the court went back to Aix, 
Fastrada died ; and how the king 
Sat watching by her night and day, 
Till into one of the blue lakes, 
Which water that delicious land, 
They cast the ring, drawn from her hand 
And the great monarch sat serene 



462 



CHRISTUS: A MYSTERY 



And sad beside the fated shore, 
Nor left the land forevermore. 



That was true love. 

PRINCE HENRY. 

For him the queen 
Ne'er did what thou hast done for me. 

ELSIE. 

Wilt thou as fond and faithful be ? 
Wilt thou so love me after death ? 

PRINCE HENRY. 

In life's delight, in death's dismay, 
In storm and sunshine, night and day, 
In health, in sickness, in decay, 
Here and hereafter, I am thine ! 
Thou hast Fastrada's ring. Beneath 
The calm, blue waters of thine eyes, 
Deep in thy steadfast soul it lies, 
And, undisturbed by this world's breath, 
With magic light its jewels shine ! 
This golden ring, which thou hast worn 
Upon thy finger since the morn, 
Is but a symbol and a semblance, 
An outward fashion, a remembrance, 
Of what thou wearest within unseen, 
O my Fastrada, O my queen ! 
Behold ! the hill-tops all aglow 
With purple and with amethyst ; 
While the whole valley deep below 
Is filled, and seems to overflow, 
With a fast-rising tide of mist. 
The evening air grows damp and chill ; 
Let us go in. 

ELSIE. 

Ah, not so soon. 
See yonder fire ! It is the moon 
Slow rising o'er the eastern hill. 
It glimmers on the forest tips, 
And through the dewy foliage drips 
In little rivulets of light, 
And makes the heart in love with night. 

PRINCE HENRY. 

Oft on this terrace, when the day 
Was closing, have I stood and gazed, 
And seen the landscape fade away, 
And the white vapors rise and drown 
Hamlet and vineyard, tower and town, 
While far above the hill-tops blazed. 
But then another hand than thine 
Was gently held and clasped in mine ; 



Another head upon my breast 
Was laid, as thine is now, at rest. 
Why dost thou lift those tender eyes 
With so much sorrow and surprise ? 
A minstrel's, not a maiden's hand, 
Was that which in my own was 
A manly form usurped thy place, 
A beautiful, but bearded face, 
That now is in the Holy Land, 
Yet in my memory from afar 
Is shining on us like a star. 
But linger not. For while I speak, 
A sheeted spectre white and tall, 
The cold mist climbs the castle wall, 
And lays his hand upon thy cheek ! 
They go in. 



EPILOGUE 

THE TWO RECORDING ANGELS AS- 
CENDING 

THE ANGEL OF GOOD DEEDS, With dosed book. 

God sent his messenger the rain, 
And said unto the mountain brook, 
" Rise up, and from thy caverns look 
And leap, with naked, snow-white feet. 
From the cool hills into the heat 
Of the broad, arid plain." 

God sent his messenger of faith, 
And whispered in the maiden's heart, 
"Rise up, and look from where thotf 

art, 
And scatter with unselfish hands 
Thy freshness on the barren sands 
And solitudes of Death." 

O beauty of holiness, 

Of self-forgetfulness, of lowliness ! 

O power of meekness, 

Whose very gentleness and weakness 

Are like the yielding, but irresistible air 

Upon the pages 

Of the sealed volume that I bear, 

The deed divine 

Is written in characters of gold, 

That never shall grow old, 

But through all ages 

Burn and shine, 

With soft effulgence ! 

O God ! it is thy indulgence 

That fills the world with the blisa 

Of a good deed like this I 



MARTIN LUTHER 



463 



THE ANGEL OF EVIL DEEDS, With Open book. 

Not yet, not yet 

Is the red sun wholly set, 

But evermore recedes, 

While open still I bear 

The Book of Evil Deeds, 

To let the breathings of the upper air 

Visit its pages and erase 

The records from its face ! 

Fainter and fainter as I gaze 

In the broad blaze 

The glimmering landscape shines, 

And below me the black river 

Is hidden by wreaths of vapor ! 

Fainter and fainter the black lines 

Begin to quiver 

Along the whitening surface of the paper ; 

Shade after shade 

The terrible words grow faint and fade, 

And in their place 

Runs a white space ! 

Down goes the sun ! 

But the soul of one, 

Who by repentance 

Hath escaped the dreadful sentence, 

Shines bright below me as I look. 

It is the end ! 

With closed Book 

To God do I ascend. 

Lo ! over the mountain steeps 

A dark, gigantic shadow sweeps 

Beneath my feet ; 

A blackness inwardly brightening 

With sullen heat, 

As a storm-cloud lurid with lightning. 

And a cry of lamentation, 

Repeated and again repeated, 

Deep and loud 

As the reverberation 

Of cloud answering unto cloud, 

Swells and rolls away in the distance, 

As if the sheeted 

Lightning retreated, 

Baffled and thwarted by the wind's resist- 



It is Lucifer, 

The son of mystery ; 

And since God suffers him to be, 

He, too, is God's minister, 

And labors for some good 

By us not understood ! 



SECOND INTERLUDE 
MARTIN LUTHER 

A CHAMBER IN THE WARTBURG. MORN 
ING. MARTIN LUTHER WRITING 

MARTIN LUTHER. 

Our God, a Tower of Strength is He, 
A goodly wall and weapon ; 
From all our need He helps us free, 
That now to us doth happen. 

The old evil foe 

Doth in earnest grow, 

In grim armor dight, 

Much guile and great might ; 
On earth there is none like him. 

Oh yes ; a tower of strength indeed, 
A present help in all our need, 
A sword and buckler is our God. 
Innocent men have walked unshod 
O'er burning ploughshares, and have trod 
Unharmed on serpents in their path, 
And laughed to scorn the Devil's wrath ! 

Safe in this Wartburg tower I stand 
Where God hath led me by the hand, 
And look down, with a heart at ease, 
Over the pleasant neighborhoods, 
Over the vast Thuringian Woods, 
With flash of river, and gloom of trees, 
With castles crowning the dizzy heights, 
And farms and pastoral delights, 
And the morning pouring everywhere 
Its golden glory on the air. 
Safe, yes, safe am I here at last, 
Safe from the overwhelming blast 
Of the mouths of Hell, that followed mc 

fast, 
And the howling demons of despair 
That hunted me like a beast to his lair. 

Of our own might we nothing can ; 
We soon are unprotected ; 
There fighteth for us the right Man, 
Whom God himself elected. 

Who is He ; ye exclaim ? 

Christus is his name, 

Lord of Sabaoth, 

Very God in troth ; 
The field He holds forever. 

Nothing can vex the Devil more 

Than the name of Him whom we adorta. 



464 



CHRISTUS: A MYSTERY 



Therefore doth it delight me best 
To stand in the choir among the rest, 
With the great organ trumpeting 
Through its metallic tubes, and sing : 
Et verbum caro factum est ! 
These words the Devil cannot endure, 
For he knoweth their meaning well ! 
Him they trouble paid repel, 
Us they comfort and allure, 
And happy it were, if our delight 
Were as great as his affright ! 

Yea, music is the Prophets' art ; 
Among the gifts that God hath sent, 
One of the most magnificent ! 
It calms the agitated heart ; 
Temptations, evil thoughts, and all 
The passions that disturb the soul, 
Are quelled by its divine control, 
As the Evil Spirit fled from Saul, 
And his distemper was allayed, 
When David took his harp and played. 

This world may full of Devils be, 
All ready to devour U3 ; 
Yet not so sore afraid are we, 
They shall not overpower us. 

This World's Prince, howe'er 

Fierce he may appear, 

He can harm 11s not, 

He is doomed, God wot ! 
One little word can slay him ! 

Incredible it seems to some 

And to myself a mystery, 

That such weak flesh and blood as we, 

Armed with no other shield or sword, 

Or other weapon than the Word, 

Should combat and should overcome 

A spirit powerful as he ! 

He summons forth the Pope of Rome 

With all his diabolic crew, 

His shorn and shaven retinue 

Of priests and children of the dark ; 

Kill ! kill ! they cry, the Heresiarch, 

Who rouseth up all Christendom 

Against us ; and at one fell blow 

Seeks the whole Church to overthrow ! 

Not yet ; my hour is not yet come. 

Yesterday in an idle mood, 
Hunting with others in the wood, 
I did not pass the hours in vain, 
For in the very heart of all 
The joyous tumult raised around, 
Shouting of men, and baying of hound, 



And the bugle's blithe and cheery call, 

And echoes answering back again, 

From crags of the distant mountain 

chain, — 
In the very heart of this, I found 
A mystery of grief and pain. 
It was an image of the power 
Of Satan, hunting the world about, 
With his nets and traps and well-trained 

dogs, 
His bishops and priests and theologues, 
And all the rest of the rabble rout, 
Seeking whom he may devour ! 
Enough I have had of hunting hares, 
Enough of these hours of idle mirth, 
Enough of nets and traps and gins ! 
The only hunting of any worth 
Is where I can pierce with javelins 
The cunning foxes and wolves and bears, 
The whole iniquitous troop of beasts, 
The Roman Pope and the Roman priests 
That sorely infest and afflict the earth ! 

Ye nuns, ye singing birds of the air ! 
The fowler hath caught you in his snare, 
And keeps you safe in his gilded cage, 
Singing the song that never tires, 
To lure down others from their nests ; 
How ye flutter and beat your breasts, 
Warm and soft with young desires 
Against the cruel, pitiless wires, 
Reclaiming your lost heritage ! 
Behold ! a hand unbars the door, 
Ye shall be captives held no more. 

The Word they shall perforce let staad, 
And little thanks they merit ! 
For He is with us in the land, 
With gifts of his own Spirit ! 

Though they take our life, 

Goods, honors, child and wife, 

Let these pass away, 

Little gain have they ; 
The Kingdom still remaineth ! 

Yea, it remaineth forevermore, 
However Satan may rage and roar, 
Though often he whispers in my ears : 
What if thy doctrines false should be ? 
And wrings from me a bitter sweat. 
Then I put him to flight with jeers, 
Saying : Saint Satan ! pray for me ; 
If thou thinkest I am not saved yet ! 

And my mortal foes that lie in wait 
In every avenue and gate ! 






THE NEW ENGLAND TRAGEDIES 



461 



As to that odious monk John Tetzel, 
Hawking about his hollow wares 
Like a huckster at village fairs, 
And those mischievous fellows, Wetzel, 
Campanus, Carlstadt, Martin Cellarius, 
And all the busy, multifarious 
Heretics, and disciples of Arius, 
Half-learned, dunce-bold, dry and hard, 
They are not worthy of my regard, 
Poor and humble as I am. 

But ah ! Erasmus of Rotterdam, 
He is the vilest miscreant 
That ever walked this world below ! 
A Momus, making his mock and mow, 
At Papist and at Protestant, 
Sneering at St. John and St. Paul, 
At God and Man, at one and all ; 
And yet as hollow and false and drear, 
As a cracked pitcher to the ear, 
And ever growing worse and worse ! 
Whenever I pray, I pray for a curse 
On Erasmus, the Insincere ! 

Philip Melancthon ! thou alone 
Faithful among the faithless known, 
Thee I hail, and only thee ! 
Behold the record of us three ! 

Bes et verba Pkilippus, 

Res sine verbis Lutherus j 

Erasmus verba sine re ! 

My Philip, prayest thou for me ? 
Lifted above all earthly care, 
From these high regions of the air, 
Among the birds that day and night 
Upon the branches of tall trees 
Sing their lauds and litanies, 
Praising God with all their might, 
My Philip, unto thee I write. 

My Philip ! thou who knowest best 
All that is passing in this breast ; 
The spiritual agonies, 
The inward deaths, the inward hell, 
And the divine new births as well, 
That surely follow after these, 
As after winter follows spring ; 
My Philip, in the night-time sing 
This song of the Lord I send to thee ; 
And I will sing it for thy sake, 
Until our answering voices make 
A. glorious antiphony, 
And choral chant of victory ! 



PART THREE 

THE NEW ENGLAND TRAGE 
DIES 

JOHN ENDICOTT 

DRAMATIS PERSONS 

John Endicott Governor. 

John Endicott His son. 

Richard Bellingham . . . Deputy Governor. 

John Norton Minister of the Gospel. 

Edward Butter Treasurer. 

Walter Merry Tithing-man. 

Nicholas Upsall . ... An old citizen. 

Samuel Cole Landlord of the Three 

Mariners. 

SiroN Kempthorn I <. „„„,„■„„ 

Ralph Goldsmith } ■ ■ ■ Sea-Captatns. 
Wenlock Christison ) 

Edith, his daughter > . . Quakers. 
Edward Wharton ) 

Assistants, Halberdiers, Marshal, etc. 

The Scene is in Boston in the year 1665. 

PROLOGUE 

To-night we strive to read, as we may best, 
This city, like an ancient palimpsest ; 
And bring to light, upon the blotted page, 
The mournful record of an earlier age, 
That, pale and half effaced, lies hidden 

away 
Beneath the fresher writing of to-day. 

Rise, then, O buried city that hast been ; 
Rise up, rebuilded in the painted scene, 
And let our curious eyes behold once more 
The pointed gable and the pent-house door, 
The Meeting-house with leaden-latticed 

panes, 
The narrow thoroughfares, the crooked 

lanes ! 

Rise, too, ye shapes and shadows of the 

Past, 
Rise from your long-forgotten graves at 

last ; 
Let us behold your faces, let us hear 
The words ye uttered in those days of fear ! 
Revisit your familiar haunts again, — 
The scenes of triumph, and the scenes of 

pain, 
And leave the footprints of your bleeding 

feet 
Once more upon the pavement of the 

street ! 



*66 



CHRISTUS: A MYSTERY 



Nor let the Historian blame the Poet 

here, 
If he perchance misdate the day or year, 
And group events together, by his art, 
That in the Chronicles lie far apart ; 
For as the double stars, though sundered 

far, 
Seem to the naked eye a single star, 
So facts of history, at a distance seen, 
Into one common point of light convene. 

6i Why touch upon such themes ? " perhaps 

some friend 
May ask, incredulous ; " and to what good 

end? 
Why drag again into the light of day 
The errors of an age long passed away ? " 
I answer : " For the lesson that they 

teach : 
The tolerance of opinion and of speech. 
Hope, Faith, and Charity remain, — these 

three ; 
And greatest of them all is Charity." 

Let us remember, if these words be true, 

That unto all men Charity is due ; 

Give what we ask ; and pity, while we 

blame, 
Lest we become copartners in the shame, 
Lest we condemn, and yet ourselves par- 
take, 
And persecute the dead for conscience' 
sake. 

Therefore it is the author seeks and strives 
To represent the dead as in their lives, 
And lets at times his characters unfold 
Their thoughts in their own language, 

strong and bold ; 
He only asks of you to do the like ; 
To hear him first, and, if you will, then 

strike. 



ACT I 

Scene I. — Sunday afternoon. The interior of 
the Meeting-house. On the pulpit, an hour- 
glass ; below, a box for contributions. John 
Norton in the pulpit. Governor Endicott 
in a canopied seat, attended by four halberd- 
iers. The congregation singing. 

The Lord descended from above, 
And bowed the heavens high ; 

And underneath his feet He east 
The darkness of the sky. 



On Cherubim and Seraphim 

Right royally He rode, 
And on the wings of mighty winds 

Came flying all abroad. 

NORTON {rising and turning the hour-glass on tM 
pulpit). 

I heard a great voice from the temple say«= 

ing 
Unto the Seven Angels, Go your ways ; 
Pour out the vials of the wrath of God 
Upon the earth. And the First Angel went 
And poured his vial on the earth ; and 

straight 
There fell a noisome and a grievous sore 
On them which had the birth-mark of the 

Beast, 
And them which worshipped and adored 

his image. 
On us hath fallen this grievous pestilence. 
There is a sense of terror in the air ; 
And apparitions of things horrible 
Are seen by many. From the sky above us 
The stars fall ; and beneath us the earth 

quakes ! 
The sound of drums at midnight from afar, 
The sound of horsemen riding to and fro, 
As if the gates of the invisible world 
Were opened, and the dead came forth to 

warn us, — 
All these are omens of some dire disaster 
Impending over us, and soon to fall. 
Moreover, in the language of the Prophet, 
Death is again come up into our windows, 
To cut off little children from without, 
And young men from the streets. And in 

the midst 
Of all these supernatural threats and warn- 
ings 
Doth Heresy uplift its horrid head ; 
A vision of Sin more awful and appalling 
Than any phantasm, ghost, or apparition, 
As arguing and portending some enlarge- 

ment 
Of the mysterious Power of Darkness ! 

Edith, barefooted, and clad in sackcloth, with 
her hair hanging loose upon her shoulders, walks 
slowly up the aisle, followed by Wharton and 
other Quakers. The congregation starts up in 
confusion. 

edith (to NORTON, raising her hand). 
Peace ! 



NORTON. 

Anathema maranatha ! The Lord cometh I 



THE NEW ENGLAND TRAGEDIES 



467 



EDITH. 

Yea, verily He cometh, and shall judge 

The shepherds of Israel who do feed them- 
selves, 

And leave their flocks to eat what they 
have trodden 

Beneath their feet. 

NORTON. 

Be silent, babbling woman ! 
St. Paul commands all women to keep 

silence 
Within the churches. 

EDITH. 

Yet the women prayed 
And prophesied at Corinth in his day ; 
And, among those on whom the fiery 

tongues 
Of Pentecost descended, some were women ! 

NORTON. 

The Elders of the Churches, by our law, 
Alone have power to open the doors of 

speech 
And silence in the Assembly. I command 

you ! 

EDITH. 

The law of God is greater than your laws ! 

Ye build your church with blood, your town 
with crime ; 

The heads thereof give judgment for re- 
ward ; 

The priests thereof teach only for their 
hire ; 

Your laws condemn the innocent to death ; 

A.nd against this I bear my testimony 1 

NORTON. 

WTiat testimony ? 

EDITH. 

That of the Holy Spirit, 
Which, as your Calvin says, surpasseth 
reason. 

NORTON. 

f he laborer is worthy of his hire. 

EDITH. 

Yet our great Master did not teach for 

hire, 
And the Apostles without purse or scrip 
Went forth to do his work. Behold this 

box 



Beneath thy pulpit. Is it for the poor ? 
Thou canst not answer. It is for the 

Priest ; 
And against this I bear my testimony. 

NORTON. 

Away with all these Heretics and Quakers ! 

Quakers, forsooth ! Because a quaking 
fell 

On Daniel, at beholding of the Vision, 

Must ye needs shake and quake ? Because 
Isaiah 

Went stripped and barefoot, must ye wail 
and howl ? 

Must ye go stripped and naked ? must ye 
make 

A wailing like the dragons, and a mourn- 
ing 

As of the owls ? Ye verify the adage 

That Satan is God's ape ! Away with 
them ! 

Tumult. The Quakers are driven out with vio- 
lence, Edith following slowly. The congrega- 
tion retires in confusion. 

Thus freely do the Reprobates commit 
Such measure of iniquity as fits them 
For the intended measure of God's wrath, 
And even in violating God's commands 
Are they fulfilling the divine decree ! 
The will of man is but an instrument 
Disposed and predetermined to its action 
According unto the decree of God, 
Being as much subordinate thereto 
As is the axe unto the hewer's hand ! 

He descends from the pulpit, and joins Governob 

Endicott, who comes forward to meet him. 
The omens and the wonders of the time, 
Famine, and fire, and shipwreck, and dis- 



The blast of corn, the death of our young 

men, 
Our sufferings in all precious, pleasant 

things, 
Are manifestations of the wrath divine, 
Signs of God's controversy with New Eng- 
land. 
These emissaries of the Evil One, 
These servants and ambassadors of Satan, 
Are but commissioned executioners 
Of God's vindictive and deserved displea- 
sure. 
We must receive them as the Roman 

Bishop 
Once received Attila, saying, I rejoice 
You have come safe, whom I esteem to b*» 



468 



CHRISTUS: A MYSTERY 



The scourge of God, sent to chastise his 

people. 
This very heresy, perchance, may serve 
The purposes of God to some good end. 
With you I leave it ; but do not neglect 
The holy tactics of the civil sword. 

ENDICOTT. 

And what more can be done ? 

NORTON. 

The hand that cut 
The Red Cross from the colors of the king 
Can cut the red heart from this heresy. 
Fear not. All blasphemies immediate 
And heresies turbulent must be suppressed 
By civil power. 

ENDICOTT. 

But in what way suppressed ? 

NORTON. 

The Book of Deuteronomy declares 

That if thy son, thy daughter, or thy wife, 

Ay, or the friend which is as thine own 

soul, 
Entice thee secretly, and say to thee, 
Let us serve other gods, then shall thine 

eye 
Not pity him, but thou shalt surely kill 

him, 
And thine own hand shall be the first upon 

him 
To slay him. 

ENDICOTT. 

Four already have been slain ; 

And others banished upon pain of death. 

But they come back again to meet their 
doom, 

Bringing the linen for their winding-sheets. 

We must not go too far. In truth, I 
shrink 

From shedding of more blood. The peo- 
ple murmur 

At our severity. 

NORTON. 

Then let them murmur ! 
Truth is relentless ; justice never wavers ; 
The greatest firmness is the greatest 

mercy ; 
The noble order of the Magistracy 
Cometh immediately from God, and yet 
This noble order of the Magistracy 
Is by these Heretics despised and out- 
raged. 



ENDICOTT. 

To-night they sleep in prison. If they die, 
They cannot say that we have caused theii 

death. 
We do but guard the passage, with the 

sword 
Pointed towards them ; if they dash upon 

it, 
Their blood will be on their own heads, not 

ours, 

NORTON. 

Enough. I ask no more. My predecessoi 
Coped only with the milder heresies 
Of Antinomians and of Anabaptists. 
He was not born to wrestle with these 

fiends. 
Chrysostom in his pulpit ; Augustine 
In disputation ; Timothy in his house ! 
The lantern of St. Botolph's ceased to burn 
When from the portals of that church he j 

came 
To be a burning and a shining light 
Here in the wilderness. And, as he lay 
On his death-bed, he saw me in a vision 
Ride on a snow-white horse into this towi 
His vision was prophetic ; thus I came, 
A terror to the impenitent, and Death 
On the pale horse of the Apocalypse 
To all the accursed race of Heretics ! 

[Exeunt. 






Scene II. — A street. On one side, Nicho- 
las Upsall's house; on the other, Walteb 
Merry's, with a flock of pigeons on the roof 
Upsall seated in the porch of his house. 

UPSALL. 

O day of rest ! How beautiful, how fair, 
How welcome to the weary and the old ! 
Day of the Lord ! and truce to earthly 

cares ! 
Day of the Lord, as all our days shoulc 

be! 
Ah, why will man by his austerities 
Shut out the blessed sunshine and the lightj 
And make of thee a dungeon of despair I 

Walter merry (entering and looking rounc 
him). 

All silent as a graveyard ! No one stir- 
ring ; 

No footfall in the street, no sound of 
voices ! 

By righteous punishment and perseverance, 

And perseverance in that punishment. 



THE NEW ENGLAND TRAGEDIES 



40V 



At last I have brought this contumacious 
town 

To strict observance of the Sabbath day. 

Those wanton gospellers, the pigeons yon- 
der, 

Are now the only Sabbath-breakers left. 

I cannot put them down. As if to taunt 
me, 

They gather every Sabbath afternoon 

In noisy congregation on my roof, 

Billing and cooing. Whir ! take that, ye 
Quakers. 

Throws a stone at the pigeons. Sees Upsall. 

Ah ! Master Nicholas ! 



Good afternoon, 
Dear neighbor Walter. 

MERRY. 

Master Nicholas, 
You have to-day withdrawn yourself from 
meeting. 



Yea, I have chosen rather to worship God 
Sitting in silence here at my own door. 

MERRY. 

Worship the Devil ! You this day have 
broken 

Three of our strictest laws. First, by ab- 
staining 

From public vrorship. Secondly, by walk- 
ing 

Profanely on the Sabbath. 

UPSALL. 

Not one step. 
I have been sitting still here, seeing the 

pigeons 
Feed in the street and fly about the roofs. 

MERRY. 

You have been in the street with other in- 
tent 

Than going to and from the Meeting-house. 

And, thirdly, you are harboring Quakers 
here. 

X am amazed ! 



Men sometimes, it is said, 
Entertain angels unawares 



MERRY. 

Nice angels ! 
Angels in broad-brimmed hats and russet 

cloaks, 
The color of the Devil's nutting-bag ! The^ 

came 
Into the Meeting-house this afternoon 
More in the shape of devils than of angels 
The women screamed and fainted ; and the 

boys 
Made such an uproar in the gallery 
I could not keep them quiet. 

UPSALL. 

Neighbor Walter* 
Your persecution is of no avail. 



'T is prosecution, 
Not persecution. 



MERRY. 

as the Governor says, 



Well, your prosecution ; 
Your hangings do no good. 

MERRY. 

The reason is, 
We do not hang enough. But, mark my 

words, 
We '11 scour them ; yea, I warrant ye 7 

we '11 scour them ! 
And now go in and entertain your angels, 
And don't be seen here in the street again 
Till after sundown ! — There they are 

again ! 

Exit Upsall. Merry throws another stone at 
the pigeons, and then goes into his house. 

Scpne III. — A room in Upsall's house. 
Night. Edith, Wharton, and other Quak- 
ers seated at a table. Upsall seated near them* 
Several books on the table. 

WHARTON. 

William and Marmaduke, our martyred: 

brothers, 
Sleep in untimely graves, if aught untimely 
Can find place in the providence of God, 
Where nothing comes too early or too late. 
I saw their noble death. They to the scaf- 
fold 
Walked hand in hand. Two hundred armed 

men 
And many horsemen guarded them, for feai 
Of rescue by the crowd, whose hearts were 
stirred. 



47© 



CHRISTUS: A MYSTERY 



holy martyrs ! 

WHARTON, 

When they tried to speak, 
Their voices by the roll of drums were 

drowned. 
When they were dead they still looked 

fresh and fair, 
The terror of death was not upon their 

faces. 
Our sister Mary, likewise, the meek woman, 
Has passed through martyrdom to her re- 
ward ; 
Exclaiming, as they led her to her death, 
" These many days I 've been in Paradise." 
And, when she died, Priest Wilson threw 

the hangman 
His handkerchief, to cover the pale face 
He dared not look upon. 

EDITH. 

As persecuted, 
Yet not forsaken ; as unknown, yet known ; 
As dying, and behold we are alive ; 
As sorrowful, and yet rejoicing always ; 
As having nothing, yet possessing all ! 

WHARTON. 

And Leddra, too, is dead. But from his 

prison, 
The day before his death, lie sent these 

words 
Unto the little flock of Christ : « Whatever 
May come upon the followers of the 

Light, — 
Distress, affliction, famine, nakedness, 
Or perils in the city or the sea, 
Or persecution, or even death itself, — 

1 am persuaded that God's armor of Light, 
As it is loved and lived in, will preserve 

you. 
Yea, death itself ; through which you will 

find entrance 
Into the pleasant pastures of the fold, 
Where you shall feed forever as the herds 
That roam at large in the low valleys of 

Achor. 
And as the flowing of the ocean fills 
Each creek and branch thereof, and then 

retires, 
Leaving behind a sweet and wholesome 

savor ; 
So doth the virtue and the life of God 
Plow evermore into the hearts of those 



Whom he hath made partakers of his 

nature ; 
And, when it but withdraws itself a little, 
Leaves a sweet savor after it, that many 
Can say they are made clean by every word 
That He hath spoken to them in their 

silence." 

edith (rising and breaking into a hind ofchant) c 
Truly we do but grope here in the dark, 
Near the partition-wall of Life and Death, 
At every moment dreading or desiring 
To lay our hands upon the unseen door ! 
Let us, then, labor for an inward stillness, — | 
An inward stillness and an inward healing ; 
That perfect silence where the lips and 

heart 
Are still, and we no longer entertain 
Our own imperfect thoughts and vain opin- 
ions, 
But God alone speaks in us, and we wait 
In singleness of heart, that we may know 
His will, and in the silence of our spirits, 
That we may do His will, and do that only ! 
A long pause, interrupted by the sound of a drum 

approaching ; then shouts in the street, and a 

loud knocking at the door. 

MARSHAL. 

Within there ! Open the door t 

MERRY. 

Will no one answer f 

MARSHAL. 

In the King's name ! Within there ! 

MERRY. 

Open the door J 

UPSALL (from the ivindoic). 

It is not barred. Come in. Nothing pre- 
vents you. 

The poor man's door is ever on the latch. 

He needs no bolt nor bar to shut out 
thieves ; 

He fears no enemies, and has no friends 

Importunate enough to need a key. 

Enter John Endicott, the Marshal, Merry, 
and a crowd. Seeing the Quakers silent and 
unmoved, they pause, awe-struck. EndicOTT 
opposite Edith. 

marshal. 
In the King's name do I arrest you all ! 
Away with them to prison. Master Upsali 



THE NEW ENGLAND TRAGEDIES 



47» 



You are again discovered harboring here 
These ranters and disturbers of the peace. 
You know the law. 



UPSALL. 



I know it, and am ready 
To suffer yet again its penalties. 

EDITH (to ENDICOTT). 

Why dost thou persecute me, Saul of Tar- 



sus ? 



ACT II 



Scene I. — John Endicott's room. Early 
morning. 

JOHN ENDICOTT. 

I Why dost thou persecute me, Saul of 
Tarsus V " 

All night these words were ringing in mine 
ears ! 

A sorrowful sweet face ; a look that 
pierced me 

With meek reproach ; a voice of resigna- 
tion 

That had a life of suffering in its tone ; 

.\nd that was all ! And yet I could not 
sleep, 

Or, when I slept, I dreamed that awful 
dream ! 

I stood beneath the elm-tree on the Com- 
mon 

On which the Quakers have been hanged, 
and heard 

A voice, not hers, that cried amid the dark- 
ness, 

" This is Aceldama, the field of blood ! 

I will have mercy, and not sacrifice ! " 
Opens the window, and looks out. 

The sun is up already ; and my heart 

Sickens and sinks within me when I think 

How may tragedies will be enacted 

Before his setting. As the earth rolls 
round, 

It seems to me a huge Ixion's wheel, 

Upon whose whirling spokes we are bound 
fast, 

And must go with it ! Ah, how bright the 
sun 

Strikes on the sea and on the masts of ves- 
sels, 

That are uplifted in the morning air, 

Like crosses of some peaceable crusade ! 

It makes me long to sail for lands un- 
known, 



No matter whither ! Under me, in 

shadow, 
Gloomy and narrow lies the little town, 
Still sleeping, but to wake and toil awhile. 
Then sleep again. How dismal looks the 

prison, 
How grim and sombre in the sunless 

street, — 
The prison where she sleeps, or wakes and 

waits 
For what I dare not think of, — death, per- 

haps ! 
A word that has been said may be unsaid : 
It is but air. But when a deed is done 
It cannot be undone, nor can our thoughts 
Reach out to all the mischiefs that may 

follow. 
'T is time for morning prayers. I will go 

down. 
My father, though severe, is kind and ju»t ; 
And when his heart is tender with devo- 
tion, — 
When from his lips have fallen the words, 

" Forgive us 
As we forgive," — then will I intercede 
For these poor people, and perhaps may 

save them. \_Exit. 

Scene II. — Dork Square. On one side, the 
tavern of the Three Mariners. In the back- 
ground, a quaint building with gables ; and, 
beyond it, wharves and shipping. Captain 
, Kempthorn and others seated at a table be- 
fore the door. Samuel Cole standing near 
them. 

kempthorn. 

Come, drink about ! Remember Parson 

Melham, 
And bless the man who first invented flip ! 
They drink. 



Pray, Master Kempthorn, where were you 
last night ? 

kempthorn. 
On board the Swallow, Simon Kempthorn, 

master, 
Up for Barbadoes, and the Windward 

Islands. 

COLE. 

The town was in a tumult. 



kempthorn. 



And for what ? 



47^ 



CHRISTUS: A MYSTERY 



COLE. 

Your Quakers were arrested. 

KEMPTHORN 

How my Quakers ? 

COLE. 

Those you brought in your vessel from Bar- 

badoes. 
They made an uproar in the Meeting-house 
Yesterday, and they 're now in prison for 

it. 
1 owe you little thanks for bringing them 
fo the Three Mariners. 

KEMPTHOEN. 

They have not harmed you. 
I tell you, Goodman Cole, that Quaker 

girl 
Is precious as a sea-bream's eye. I tell 

you 
It was a lucky day when first she set 
Her little foot upon the Swallow's deck, 
Bringing good luck, fair winds, and pleasant 

weather. 



I am a law-abiding citizen ; 

I have a seat in the new Meeting-house, 

A cow-right on the Common ; and, besides, 

Am corporal in the Great Artillery. 

I rid me of the vagabonds at once. 

KEMPTHORN. 

Why should you not have Quakers at your 

tavern 
If you have fiddlers ? 



Never ! never ! never ! 

If you want fiddling you must go else- 
where, 

To the Green Dragon and the Admiral 
Vernon, 

And other such disreputable places. 

But the Three Mariners is an orderly 
house, 

Most orderly, quiet, and respectable. 

Lord Leigh said he could be as quiet here 

As at the Governor's. And have I not 

King Charles's Twelve Good Rules, all 
framed and glazed, 

Hanging in my best parlor ? 



KEMPTHORN. 

Here 's a health 
To good King Charles. Will you not drink 

the King ? 
Then drink confusion to old Parson Palmer. 

COLE. 

And who is Parson Palmer ? I don't know 
him. 

KEMPTHORN. 

He had his cellar underneath his pulpit, 
And so preached o'er his liquor, just as yon 
do. 

A drum within. 

COLE. 

Here comes the Marshal. 

merry {within). 
Make room for the Marsl 

KEMPTHORN. 

How pompous and imposing he appears 

His great buff doublet bellying like a main- 
sail, 

And all his streamers fluttering in the 
wind. 

What holds he in his hand ? 

COLE. 

A proclamation. 

Enter the Marshal, with a proclamation ; and j 
Merry, with a halberd. They are preceded 
by a drummer, and followed by the hangman, 
with an armful of books, and a crowd of people^ 
among whom are Upsall and John Endi- 
cott. A pile is made of the books. 

MERRY. 

Silence, the drum ! Good citizens, attend 
To the new laws enacted by the Court. 

marshal (reads). 
" Whereas a cursed sect of Heretics 
Has lately risen, commonly called Quakers, 
Who take upon themselves to be commis- 
sioned 
Immediately of God, and furthermore 
Infallibly assisted by the Spirit 
To write and utter blasphemous opinions, 
Despising Government and the order of 

God 
In Church and Commonwealth, and speak- 
ing evil 
Of Dignities, reproaching and reviling 



THE NEW ENGLAND TRAGEDIES 



473 



The Magistrates and Ministers, and seek- 
ing 
Tc turn the people from their faith, and 

thus 
Gain proselytes to their pernicious ways ; — 
This Court, considering the premises, 
And to prevent like mischief as is wrought 
By their means in our laud, doth hereby 

order, 
That whatsoever master or commander 
Of any ship, bark, pink, or catch shall 

bring 
To any roadstead, harbor, creek, or cove 
Within this Jurisdiction any Quakers, 
Or other blasphemous Heretics, shall pay 
Unto the Treasurer of the Commonwealth 
One hundred pounds, and for default 

thereof 
Be put in prison, and continue there 
Till the said sum be satisfied and paid." 



Now, Simon Kempthorn, what say you to 
that? 

KEMPTHORN. 

C pray you, Cole, lend me a hundred 
pounds ! 

marshal (reads). 
* If any one within this Jurisdiction 
Shall henceforth entertain, or shall conceal 
Quakers, or other blasphemous Heretics, 
Knowing them so to be, every such person 
Shall forfeit to the country forty shillings 
For each hour's entertainment or conceal- 
ment, 
And shall be sent to prison, as aforesaid, 
Until the forfeiture be wholly paid." 
Murmurs in the crowd. 

KEMPTHORN. 

Now. Goodman Cole, I think your turn has 
come ! 

COLE. 

Knowing them so to be ! 

KEMPTHORN. 

At forty shillings 
The hour, your fine will be some forty 
pounds ! 

COLE. 

Knowing them so to be ! That is the law. 



marshal (reads). 
" And it is further ordered and enacted, 
If any Quaker or Quakers shall presume 
To come henceforth into this Jurisdiction, 
Every male Quaker for the first offence 
Shall have one ear cut off ; and shall be kept 
At labor in the Workhouse, till such time 
As he be sent away at his own charge. 
And for the repetition of the offence 
Shall have his other ear cut off, and then 
Be branded in the palm of his right hand. 
And every woman Quaker shall be whipt 
Severely in three towns ; and every Quaker, 
Or he or she, that shall for a third time 
Herein again offend, shall have their 

tongues 
Bored through with a hot iron, and shall be 
Sentenced to Banishment on pain of 

Death." 
Loud murmurs. The voice of Christison in the 

crowd. 
O patience of the Lord ! How long, how 

long, 
Ere thou avenge the blood of Tb>e Elect ' 

MERRY. 

Silence, there, silence ! Do not break the 
peace ! 

marshal (reads). 
" Every inhabitant of this Jurisdiction 
Who shall defend the horrible opinions 
Of Quakers, by denying due respect 
To equals and superiors, and withdrawing 
From Church Assemblies, and thereby ap- 
proving 
The abusive and destructive practices 
Of this accursed sect, in opposition 
To all the orthodox received opinions 
Of godly men, shall be forthwith com* 

mitted 
Unto close prison for one month ; and then 
Refusing to retract and to reform 
The opinions as aforesaid, he shall be 
Sentenced to Banishment on pain of Death. 
By the Court. Edward Rawson, Secretary ." 
Now, hangman, do your duty. Burn those 

books. 
Loud murmurs in the crowd. The pile of books 
is lighted. 



I testify against these cruel laws ! 
Forerunners are they of some judgment or 



174 



CHRISTUS: A MYSTERY 



And, in the love and tenderness I bear 
Unto this town and people, I beseech you, 

Magistrates, take heed, lest ye be found 
As fighters against God ! 

john endicott (taking upsall's hand). 

Upsall, I thank you 
For speaking words such as some younger 

man, 
I, or another, should have said before you. 
Such laws as these are cruel and oppres- 
sive ; 
A blot on this fair town, and a disgrace 
To any Christian people. 

merry (aside, listening behind them). 

Here 's sedition ! 

1 never thought that any good would come 
Of this young popinjay, with his long hair 
And his great boots, fit only for the Rus- 
sians 

Or barbarous Indians, as his father says ! 

THE VOICE. 

Woe to the bloody town ! And rightfully 
Men call it the Lost Town ! The blood of 

Abel 
Cries from the ground, and at the final 

judgment 
The Lord will say, " Cain, Cain ! where is 

thy brother ? " 

MERRY. 

Silence there in the crowd ! 

UPSAll (aside). 

'T is Christison ! 

THE VOICE. 

O foolish people, ye that think to burn 
And to consume the truth of God, I tell 

you 
That every flame is a loud tongue of fire 
To publish it abroad to all the world 
Louder than tongues of men ! 

kempthorn (springing to his feet). 

Well said, my hearty ! 
There 's a brave fellow ! There 's a man of 

pluck ! 
A man who 's not afraid to say his say, 
Though a whole town 's against him. Rain, 

rain, rain, 
Bones of St. Botolph, and put out this fire ! 

The drum beats. Exeunt all but Merry, Kemp- 
thorn, and Cole. 



MERRY. 

And now that matter 's ended, Goodmaf 

Cole, 
Fetch me a mug of ale, your strongest ale, 

kempthorn (sitting down). 
And me another mug of flip ; and put 
Two gills of brandy in it. 

[Exit Cole. 

MERRY. 

No ; no more. 
Not a drop more, I say. You've hvd 
enough. 

KEMPTHORN. 

And who are you, sir ? 

MERRY. 

I 'm a Tithing-man, 
And Merry is my name. 

KEMPTHORN. 

A merry name ! 
I like it ; and I '11 drink your merry health 
Till all is blue. 

MERRY. 

And then you will be clapped 
Into the stocks, with the red letter D 
Hung round about your neck for drunken- 
ness. 
You 're a free-drinker, — yes, and a free- 
thinker ! 

KEMPTHORN. 

And you are Andrew Merry, or Merry 
Andrew. 

MERRY. 

My name is Walter Merry, and not Ai 
drew. 

KEMPTHORN. 

Andrew or Walter, you 're a merry fellow 
I '11 swear to that. 

MERRY. 

No swearing, let me tell yoi 
The other day one Shorthose had his tongue 
Put into a cleft stick for profane swearing. 
Cole brings the ale. 

KEMPTHORN. 

Well, where 's my flip ? As sure as mf 
name 's Kempthorn — 

MERRY. 

Is your name Kempthorn ? 



THE NEW ENGLAND TRAGEDIES 



471 



KEMPTHORN. 

That 's the name I go by. 

MERKY. 

WTiat, Captain Simon Kempthorn of the 
Swallow ? 



No other. 



KEMPTHORN. 



merry (touching him on the shoulder). 
Then you 're wanted. I arrest you 
in the King's name. 

kempthorn. 
And where 's your warrant ? 

merry (unfolding a paper, and reading). 

Here. 
Listen to me. " Hereby you are required, 
Id the King's name, to apprehend the 

body 
Of Simon Kempthorn, mariner, and him 
Safely to bring before me, there to answer 
All such objections as are laid to him, 
Touching the Quakers." Signed, John 

Endicott. 

KEMPTHORN. 

Has it the Governor's seal ? 



Ay, here it is. 

KEMPTHORN. 

Death's head and cross-bones. That's a 
pirate's flag ! 

MERRY. 

Beware how you revile the Magistrates ; 
You may be whipped for that. 

KEMPTHORN. 

Then mum 's the word. 
Exeunt Merry and Kempthorn. 



There 's mischief brewing ! Sure, there 's 

mischief brewing ! 
I feel like Master Josselyn when he found 
The hornet's nest, and thought it some 

strange fruit, 
Until the seeds came out, and then he 

dropped it. [Exit. 



Scene III. — A room in the Governor's house 
Enter Governor Endicott and Merry. 

endicott. 
My son, you say ? 

MERRY. 

Your Worship's eldest soa, 

ENDICOTT. 

Speaking against the laws ? 

MERRY. 

Ay, worshipful sir. 

ENDICOTT. 

And in the public market-place ? 

MERRY. 

I saw him 
With my own eyes, heard him with my 
own ears. 



Impossible ! 



ENDICOTT. 



MERRY. 

He stood there in the crowd 
With Nicholas Upsall, when the laws 

were read 
To-day against the Quakers, and I heard 

him 
Denounce and vilipend them as unjust, 
And cruel, wicked, and abominable. 

ENDICOTT. 

Ungrateful son ! O God ! thou lay est 

upon me 
A burden heavier than I can bear ! 
Surely the power of Satan must be great 
Upon the earth, if even the elect 
Are thus deceived and fall away from 

grace ! 

MERRY. 

Worshipful sir ! I meant no harm — 

ENDICOTT. 

'T is well. 
You 've done your duty, though you 've 

done it roughly, 
And every word you 've uttered since you 

came 
Has stabbed me to the heart ! 



MERRY. 

Your Worship's pardon I 



I do beseech 



476 



CHRISTUS: A MYSTERY 



ENDICOTT. 

He whom I have nurtured 
And brought up in the reverence of the 

Lord ! 
The child of all my hopes and my affec- 
tions ! 
He upon whom I leaned as a sure staff 
For my old age ! It is God's chastisement 
For leaning upon any arm but His ! 



Your Worship ! — 

ENDICOTT. 

And this comes from holding parley 
With the delusions and deceits of Satan. 
At once, forever, must they be crushed out, 
Or all the land will reek with heresy ! 
Pray, have you any children ? 

MERET. 

No, not any. 

ENDICOTT. 

'iifrank God for that. He has delivered 
you 

From a great care. Enough ; my private 
griefs 

Too long have kept me from the public ser- 
vice. 

Exit Merry. Endicott seats himself at the 
table and arranges his papers. 

The hour has come ; and I am eager now 
To sit in judgment on these Heretics. 

A knock. 
Oome in. Who is it ? (Not looking up). 

JOHN ENDICOTT. 

It is I. 

endicott (restraining himself). 

Sit down ! 

JOHN endicott (sitting down). 
1 come to intercede for these poor people 
Who are in prison, and await their trial. 

endicott. 
It is of them I wish to speak with you. 
1 have been angry with you, but 't is 

passed. 
For when I hear your footsteps come or go, 
See in your features your dead mother's 

face, 
And in your voice detect some tone of hers, 



All anger vanishes, and I remember 

The days that are no more, and come nc 

more. 
When as a child you sat upon my knee, 
And prattled of your playthings, and the 

games 
You played among the pear trees in thl 

orchard ! 

JOHN endicott. 
Oh, let the memory of my noble mother 
Plead with you to be mild and merciful ! 
For mercy more becomes a Magistrate 
Than the vindictive wrath which men cat 
justice ! 

ENDICOTT. 

The sin of heresy is a deadly sin. 

'T is like the falling of the snow, whose 
crystals 

The traveller plays with, thoughtless of hi* 
danger, 

Until he sees the air so full of light 

That it is dark ; and blindly staggering on- 
ward, 

Lost and bewildered, he sits down to rest ; 

There falls a pleasant drowsiness upon 
him, 

And what he thinks is sleep, alas ! is death. 






JOHN ENDICOTT. 

And yet who is there that has nevei 

doubted ? 
And doubting and believing, has not said, 
" Lord, I believe ; help thou my unbe- 
lief"? 

ENDICOTT. 

In the same way we trifle with our doubts, 
Whose shining shapes are like the stars de- 
scending ; 
Until at last, bewildered and dismayed, 
Blinded by that which seemed to give u£ 

light, 
We sink to sleep, and find that it is death, 

Bising. 
Death to the soul through all eternity ! 
Alas that I should see you growing up 
To man's estate, and in the admonition 
And nurture of the Law, to find you now 
Pleading for Heretics ! 

john endicott (rising). 

In the sight of God, 
Perhaps all men are Heretics. Who daref 
To say that he alone has found the truth ? 



THE NEW ENGLAND TRAGEDIES 



477 



We cannot always feel and think and act 
As those who go before us. Had you done 

so, 
Xqu would not now be here. 

ENDICOTT. 

Have you forgotten 
/he doom of Heretics, and the fate of 

those 
Who aid and comfort them ? Have you 

forgotten 
That in the market-place this very day 
You trampled on the laws ? What right 

have you, 
An inexperienced and untravelled youth, 
To sit in judgment here upon the acts 
Of older men and wiser than yourself, 
Thus stirring up sedition in the streets, 
And making me a byword and a jest ? 

JOHN ENDICOTT. 

Words of an inexperienced youth like me 
Were powerless if the acts of older men 
Went not before them. 'T is these laws 

themselves 
Stir up sedition, not my judgment of them. 

ENDICOTT. 

Take heed, lest I be called, as Brutus was, 
To be the judge of my own son ! Begone ! 
When you are tired of feeding upon husks, 
Return again to duty and submission, 
But not till then. 

JOHN ENDICOTT. 

I hear and I obey ! 

[Exit. 

ENDICOTT. 

Oh happy, happy they who have no chil- 
dren ! 

He 's gone ! I hear the hall door shut be- 
hind him. 

It sends a dismal echo through my heart, 

As if forever it had closed between us, 

And I should look upon his face no more ! 

Oh, this will drag me down into my 
grave, — 

To that eternal resting-place wherein 

Man lieth down, and riseth not again ! 

Till the heavens be no more he shall not 
wake, 

Nor be roused from his sleep ; for Thou 
dost change 

His countenance, and sendest him away ! 

LExit. 



ACT III 

Scene I. —The Court of Assistants. Endicott, 
Bellingham, Atherton, and other magis- 
trates. Kempthokn, Merry, and constables. 
Afterwards Wharton, Edith, and Chris- 
tison. 

endicott. 

Call Captain Simon Kempthorn., 

MERRY. 

Simon Kempthorn* 
Come to the bar ! 

kempthorn comes forward. 

ENDICOTT. 

You are accused of bringing 

Into this Jurisdiction, from Barbadoes, 

Some persons of that sort and sect of 
people 

Known by the name of Quakers, and main- 
taining 

Most dangerous and heretical opinions ; 

Purposely coming here to propagate 

Their heresies and errors ; bringing with 
them 

And spreading sundry books here, which 
contain 

Their doctrines most corrupt and blasphe- 
mous, 

And contrary to the truth professed among 
us. 

What say you to this charge ? 

KEMPTHORN. 

I do acknowledge, 

Among the passengers on board the Swal- 
low 

Were certain persons saying Thee and 
Thou. 

They seemed a harmless people, mostwayf 
silent, 

Particularly when they said their prayers. 

ENDICOTT. 

Harmless and silent as the pestilence ! 

You 'd better have brought the fever or the 
plague 

Among us in your ship ! Therefore, this 
Court, 

For preservation of the Peace and Truth, 

Hereby commands you speedily to trans- 
port, 

Or cause to be transported speedily, 



478 



CHRISTUS: A MYSTERY 



The aforesaid persons hence unto Bar- 

badoes, 
From whence they came ; you paying all 

the charges 
Of their imprisonment. 

KEMPTHOEN. 

Worshipful sir, 
No ship e'er prospered that has carried 

Quakers 
Against their will ! I knew a vessel 

once — 

ENDICOTT. 

And for the more effectual performance 
Hereof you are to give security 
In bonds amounting to one hundred pounds. 
On your refusal, you will be committed 
To prison till you do it. 

KEMPTHOKK. 

But you see 
I cannot do it. The law, sir, of Barbadoes 
Forbids the landing Quakers on the island. 

ENDICOTT. 

Then vou will be committed. Who comes 
"next? 

MERRY. 

There is another charge against the Cap- 
tain. 



What is it ? 



ENDICOTT. 



Profane swearing, please your Worship. 
He cursed and swore from Dock Square to 
the Court-house. 

ENDICOTT. 

Then let him stand in the pillory for one 
hour. 

[Exit Kempthorn with constable. 

Qiao's next? 

MERRY. 

The Quakers. 

ENDICOTT. 

Call them. 

MERRY. 

Edward Wharton, 
dome to the bar ! 

WHARTON. 

Yea, even to the bench. 



ENDICOTT. 

Take off your hat. 

WHARTON. 

My hat offendeth ne& 
If it offendeth any, let him take it ; 
For I shall not resist. 

ENDICOTT. 

Take off his hat. 
Let him be fined ten shillings for contempt 
Merry takes off Wharton's hat. 

WHARTON. 

What evil have I done ? 

ENDICOTT. 

Your hair 's too long ; 
And in not putting off your hat to us 
You 've disobeyed and broken that com* 

mandment 
Which sayeth " Honor thy father and thj 

mother." 

WHARTON. 

John Endicott, thou art become too proud j 
And lovest him who putteth off the hat, 
And honoreth thee by bowing of the body, 
And sayeth " Worshipful sir ! " 'T is time 

for thee 
To give such follies over, for thou mayest 
Be drawing very near unto thy grave. 



ENDICOTT. 

Now, sirrah, leave your canting. Take the 
oath. 

WHARTON. 

Nay, sirrah me no sirrahs ! 



3 



ENDICOTT. 



Will you swear ? 



WHARTON. 



Nay, I will not. 



ENDICOTT. 

You made a great disturbance 
And uproar yesterday in the Meeting- 
house, 
Having your hat on. 



WHARTON. 

I made no disturban( 
For peacefully I stood, like other people. 
I spake no words ; moved against none my 
hand ; 



., 



THE NEW ENGLAND TRAGEDIES 



479 



But by the hair they haled me out, and 


EDITH. 


dashed 


In the Lord. 


Their books into my face. 






ENDICOTT. 


ENDICOTT. 


Make answei 


You, Edward Wharton, 


Without evasion. Where ? 


On pain of death, depart this Jurisdiction 




Within ten days. Such is your sentence. 


EDITH. 


Go. 


My outward being 


WHARTON. 


Is in Barbadoes. 


John Endicott, it had been well for thee 




If this day's doings thou hadst left undone. 


ENDICOTT. 


But, banish me as far as ihou hast power, 


Then why come you here ? 


Beyond the guard and presence of my God 




Thou canst not banish me ! 


EDITH. 


ENDICOTT. 


I come upon an errand of the Lord. 


Depart the Court ; 


ENDICOTT. 


We have no time to listen to your babble. 
Who 's next ? [Exit Wharton. 


'T is not the business of the Lord you 're 
doing; 


MERRY. 


It is the Devil's. Will you take the oath ? 




Give her the Book. 


This woman, for the same offence. 




Edith comes forward. 


Merry offers the book. 


ENDICOTT. 


EDITH. 


What is your name ? 


You offer me this Book 




To swear on ; and it saith, " Swear not at 


EDITH. 


all, 


'T is to the world unknown, 


Neither by heaven, because it is God's 


But written in the Book of Life. 


Throne, 




Nor by the earth, because it is his foot- 


ENDICOTT. 


stool ! " 


Take heed 


I dare not swear. 


It be not written in the Book of Death ! 




What is it ? 


ENDICOTT. 


EDITH. 


You dare not ? Yet you Quakers 


Edith Christison. 


Deny this Book of Holy Writ, the Bible, 




To be the Word of God. 


endicott {with eagerness). 




The daughter 
Of Wenlock Christison? 


EDITH {reverentially). 

Christ is the Word, 




The everlasting oath of God. I dare not. 


EDITH. 




I am his daughter. 


ENDICOTT. 




You own yourself a Quaker, — do you not? 


ENDICOTT. 




Your father hath given us trouble many 


EDITH. 


times. 


I own that in derision and reproach 


A bold man and a violent, who sets 


I am so called. 


At naught the authority of our Church and 




State, 


ENDICOTT. 


And is in banishment on pain of death. 


Then you deny the Scripture 


Where are you living ? 


To be the rule of life. 



CHRISTUS: A MYSTERY 



The 



Yea, I believe 
and not the Written 



Inner Light, 
Word, 
To be the rule of life 



ENDICOTT. 

And you deny- 
That the Lord's Day is holy. 

EDITH. 

Every day 
Is the Lord's Day. It runs through all 

our Jives, 
As through the pages of the Holy Bible, 
« Thus saith the Lord." 

ENDICOTT. 

You are accused of making 
An horrible disturbance, and affrighting 
The people in the Meeting-house on Sun- 
day. 
What answer make you ? 



I do not deny 
That I was present in your Steeple-house 
On the First Day ; but I made no disturb- 



ENDICOTT. 

Why came you there ? 



Because the Lord commanded. 
His word was in my heart, a burning fire 
Shut up within me and consuming me, 
And I was very weary with forbearing ; 
I could not stay. 

ENDICOTT. 

'T was not the Lord that sent you ; 
As an incarnate devil did you come ! 



On 



EDITH. 

when, 



seated in my 



the First Day, 

chamber, 
I heard the bells toll, calling you together, 
The sound struck at my life, as once at his, 
The holy man, our Founder, when he heard 
The far-off bells toll in the Vale of Beavor. 
It sounded like a market bell to call 
The folk together, that the Priest might 

set 



His wares to sale. And the Lord said 

within me, 
" Thou must go cry aloud against that Idol, 
And all the worshippers thereof." I went 
Barefooted, clad in sackcloth, and I stood 
And listened at the threshold ; and I heard 
The praying and the singing and the 

preaching, 
Which were but outward forms, and wifch<= 

out power. 
Then rose a cry within me, and my heart 
Was filled with admonitions and reproofs. 
Remembering how the Prophets and Apos- 
tles 
Denounced the covetous hirelings and di- 
viners, 
I entered in, and spake the words the Lord 
Commanded me to speak. I could no less. 

ENDICOTT. 

Are you a Prophetess ? 



Is it not written, 
" Upon my handmaidens will I pour out 
My spirit and they shall prophesy " ? 

ENDICOTT. 

Enough ; 
For out of your own mouth are you cop- 

demned ! 
Need we hear further ? 



THE JUDGES. 



We are satisfied 

ENDICOTT. 

It is sufficient. Edith Christison, 

The sentence of the Court is, that you be 

Scourged in three towns, with forty stripes 

save one, 
Then banished upon pain of death ! 






EDITH. 

Your sentence 
Is truly no more terrible to me 
Than had you blown a feather into the air, 
And, as it fell upon me, you had said, 
" Take heed it hurt thee not ! " God's will 
be done ! 

wenlock christison (unseen in the crowd). 
Woe to the city of blood ! The stone shall 
cry 



THE NEW ENGLAND TRAGEDIES 



4S1 



Out of the wall ; the beam from out the 

timber 
Shall answer it ! Woe unto him that 

buildeth 
A town with blood, and stablisheth a city 
By his iniquity ! 

ENDICOTT. 

Who is it makes 
Such outcry here ? 

CHRISTISON (coming forward). 

I, Wenlock Christison ! 

ENDICOTT. 

Banished on pain of death, why come you 
here ? 

CHRISTISON. 

I come to warn you that you shed no more 
The blood of innocent men ! It cries aloud 
For vengeance to the Lord ! 

ENDICOTT. 

Your life is forfeit 
Unto the law ; and you shall surely die, 
And shall not live. 

CHRISTISON. 

Like unto Eleazer, 
Maintaining the excellence of ancient years 
And the honor of his gray head, I stand 

before you ; 
Like him disdaining all hypocrisy, 
Lest, through desire to live a little longer, 
I get a stain to my old age and name ! 

ENDICOTT. 

Being in banishment, on pain of death, 
You come now in among us in rebellion. 

CHRISTISON. 

I come not in among you in rebellion, 
But in obedience to the Lord of Heaven. 
Not in contempt to any Magistrate, 
But only in the love I bear your souls, 
As ye shall know hereafter, when all men 
Give an account of deeds done in the body ! 
God's righteous judgments ye cannot es- 
cape. 

ONE OF THE JUDGES. 

Those who have gone before you said the 

same, 
And yet no judgment of the Lord hath 

fallen 
Cpon us. 



CHRISTISON. 

He but waiteth till the measure 
Of your iniquities shall be tilled up, 
And ye have run your race. Then will his 

wrath 
Descend upon you to the uttermost ! 
For thy part, Humphrey Atherton, it hangs 
Over thy head already. It shall come 
Suddenly, as a thief doth in the night, 
And in the hour when least thou thinkest 

of it! 

ENDICOTT. 

We have a law, and by that law you die. 

CHRISTISON. 

I, a free man of England and freeborn, 
Appeal unto the laws of mine own nation ! 

ENDICOTT. 

There *s no appeal to England from this 

Court ! 
What ! do you think our statutes are but 

paper ? 
Are but dead leaves that rustle in the wind ? 
Or litter to be trampled under foot ? 
What say ye, Judges of the Court, — what 

say ye ? 
Shall this man suffef death ? Speak your 

opinions. 

ONE OF THE JUDGES. 

I am a mortal man, and die I must, 
And that erelong ; and I must then appear 
Before the awful judgment-seat of Christ, 
To give account of deeds done in the body. 
My greatest glory on that day will be, 
That I have given my vote against this 
man. 

CHRISTISON. 

If, Thomas Danforth, thou hast nothing 

more 
To glory in upon that dreadful day 
Than blood of innocent people, then thy 

glory 
Will be turned into shame ! The Lord 

hath said it ! 

ANOTHER JUDGE. 

I cannot give consent, while other men 
Who have been banished upon pain of 

death 
Are now in their own houses here among us. 

ENDICOTT. 

Ye that will not consent, make record of it 



$82 



CHRISTUS: A MYSTERY 



I thank my God that I am not afraid 

To give my judgment. Wenlock Christison, 

You must be taken back from hence to 

prison, 
Thence to the place of public execution, 
There to be hanged till you be dead — dead, 

— dead ! 

CHRISTISON. 

If ye have power to take my life from 

me, — 
Which I do question, — God hath power to 

raise 
The principle of life in other men, 
And send them here among you. There 

shall be 
No peace unto the wicked, saith my God. 
Listen, ye Magistrates, for the Lord hath 

said it ! 
The day ye put his servitors to death, 
That day the Day of your own Visitation, 
The Day of Wrath, shall pass above your 

heads, 
And ye shall be accursed forevermore ! 

To Edith, embracing her. 
Cheer up, dear heart ! they have not power 

to harm us. 
[Exeunt Christison and Edith guarded. The 
Scene closes. 

Scene II. — A street. Enter John Endicctt 
and Upsall. 

JOHN endicott. 
Scourged in three towns ! and yet the busy 

people 
Go up and down the streets on their affairs 
Of business or of pleasure, as if nothing 
Had happened to disturb them or their 

thoughts ! 
When bloody tragedies like this are acted, 
The pulses of a nation should stand still ; 
The town should be in mourning, and the 

people 
Speak only in low whispers to each other. 

upsall. 
[ know this people ; and that underneath 
A cold outside there burns a secret fire 
That will find vent, and will not be put out, 
Till every remnant of these barbarous laws 
ohall be to ashes burned, and blown away. 

JOHN endicott. 
Scourged in three towns ! It is incredible 



Such things can be ! I feel the blood withii 

me 
Fast mounting in rebellion, since in vain 
Have I implored compassion of my father I 



You know your father only as a father ; 

I know him better as a Magistrate. 

He is a man both loving and severe ; 

A tender heart ; a will inflexible. 

None ever loved him more than I have 

loved him. 
He is an upright man and a just man 
In all things save the treatment of the 

Quakers. 



JOHN endicott. 



Yet I have found him cruel and unjust 
Even as a father. He has driven me forth 
Into the street ; has shut his door upon me, 
With words of bitterness. I am as home- 
less 
As these poor Quakers are. 









Then come with me. 
You shall be welcome for your father's 

sake, 
And the old friendship that has been be 

tween us. 
He will relent erelong. A fathers anger 
Is like a sword without a handle, piercing 
Both ways alike, and wounding him that 

wields it 
No less than him that it is pointed at. 

[Exeunt. 

Scene III. > The prh.on. Night. Edith read* i 
ing the Bible by a Lamp. 

EDITH. 

" Blessed are ye when men shall persecute i 
you, 

And shall revile you, and shall say against 
you 

All manner of evil falsely for my sake ! 

Rejoice, and be exceeding glad, for great 

Is your reward in heaven. For so the pro- 
phets, 

Which were before you, have been perse* 
cuted." 

Enter John Endicott. 



JOHN ENDICOTT. 



Edith! 



THE NEW ENGLAND TRAGEDIES 



483 



EDITH. 

Who is it that speaketh ? 

JOHN ENDICOTT. 

Saul of Tarsus : 
As thou didst call me once. 

edith {coming forward). 

Yea, I remember. 
Thou art the Governor's son. 



I am ashamed 



JOHN ENDICOTT. 

Thou shouldst remember me. 

EDITH. 

Why comest thou 
Into this dark guest-chamber in the night ? 
What seekest thou ? 

JOHN ENDICOTT. 

Forgiveness ! 

EDITH. 

I forgive 
A.1! who have injured me. What hast thou 
done ? 

JOHN ENDICOTT. 

2 have betrayed thee, thinking that in this 
I did God service. Now, in deep contri- 
tion, 
u come to rescue thee. 

EDITH. 

From what ? 



JOHN ENDICOTT. 



From prison. 



EDITH. 

[ am safe here within these gloomy walls. 

JOHN ENDICOTT. 

From scourging in the streets, and in three 
towns ! 

EDITH. 

Remembering who was scourged for me, I 

shrink not 
Nor shudder at the forty stripes save odc 

JOHN ENDICOTT. 

Perhaps from death itself 1 



I fear not death, 
Knowing who died for me. 

john endicott (aside). 

Surely some divine 
Ambassador is speaking through those lips 
And looking through those eyes ! I cannot 
answer ! 

EDITH. 

If all these prison doors stood opened wide 
I would not cross the threshold, — not one 

step. 
There are invisible bars I cannot break ; 
There are invisible doors that shut me in, 
And keep me ever steadfast to my pur- 
pose. 

JOHN ENDICOTT. 

Thou hast the patience and the faith of 
Saints ! 

EDITH. 

Thy Priest hath been with me this day to 

save me, 
Not only from the death that comes to all, 
But from the second death ! 

JOHN ENDICOTT. 

The Pharisee ! 
My heart revolts against him and his 

creed ! 
Alas ! the coat that was without a seam 
Is rent asunder by contending sects ; 
Each bears away a portion of the garment 
Blindly believing that he has the whole ! 

EDITH. 

When Death, the Healer, shall have touched 
our eyes 

With moist clay of the grave, then shall we 
see 

The truth as we have never yet beheld it. 

But he that overcorneth shall not be 

Hurt of the second death. Has he forgot- 
ten 

The many mansions in our father's house ? 

JOHN ENDICOTT. 

There is no pity in his iron heart ! 

The hands that now bear stamped upon 

their palms 
The burning sign of Heresy, hereafter 
Shall be uplifted against such accusers, 



4§4 



CHRISTUS: A MYSTERY 



And then the imprinted letter and its mean- 
ing- 
Will not be Heresy, but Holiness ! 

EDITH. 

Remember, thou condemnest thine own 
father ! 

JOHN ENDICOTT. 

I have no father ! He has cast me off. 
I am as homeless as the wind that moans 
And wanders through the streets. Oh, 

come with me ! 
Do not delay. Thy God shall be my God, 
And where thou goest I will go. 



I cannot. 
Yet will I not deny it, nor conceal it ; 
From the first moment I beheld thy face 
I felt a tenderness in my soul towards thee. 
My mind has since been inward to the 

Lord, 
Waiting his word. It has not yet been 

spoken. 

JOHN ENDICOTT. 

I cannot wait. Trust me. Oh, come with 
me ! 

EDITH. 

In the next room, my father, an old man, 
Sitteth imprisoned and condemned to 

death, 
Willing to prove his faith by martyrdom ; 
And thinkest thou his daughter would do 

less? 

JOHN ENDICOTT. 

Oh, life is sweet, and death is terrible ! 

EDITH. 

I have too long walked hand in hand with 

death 
To shudder at that pale familiar face. 
But leave me now. I wish to be alone. 

JOHN ENDICOTT. 

Not yet,, Oh, let me stay. 

EDITH. 

Urge me no more. 

JOHN ENDICOTT. 

Alas ! good-night. I will not say good-by ! 



Put this temptation underneath thy feet. 
To him that overcometh shall be given 
The white stone with the new name written 

on it, 
That no man knows save him that doth 

receive it, 
And I will give thee a new name, and call 

thee 
Paul of Damascus and not Saul of Tarsus. 

[Exit Endicott. Edith sits down again to 
read the Bible. 



ACT IV 

Scene I. — King Street, in front of the town- 
house. Kempthorn in the pillory. Merr* 
and a crowd of lookers-on. 



KEMPTHORN 

The world is full of care, 

Much like unto a bubble ; 
Women and care, and care and women, 

And women and care and trouble. 

Good Master Merry, may I say confound 

MERRY. 

Ay, that you may. 

KEMPTHORN. 

Well, then, with your permission, 
Confound the Pillory ! 

MERRY. 

That r s the very thing 
The joiner said who made the Shrewsbury 

stocks. 
He said, Confound the stocks, because they 

put him 
Into his own. He was the first man in 

them. 

KEMPTHORN. 

For swearing, was it ? 

MERRY. 

No, it was for charging f 
He charged the town too much ; and so the 

town, 
To make things square, set him in his own 

stocks, 
And fined him five pound sterling, — jus* 

enough 
To settle his own bill. 



THE NEW ENGLAND TRAGEDIES 



48$ 



KEMPTHORN. 



And served him right 
But, Master Merry, is it not eight bells ? 



Not quite. 



KEMPTHOEN. 



For, do you see ? I 'm getting tired 
Of being perched aloft here in this cro' 

nest 
Like the first mate of a whaler, or a Middy 
Mast-headed, looking out for land ! Sail 

ho! 
Here comes a heavy-laden merchantman 
With the lee clews eased off, and running 

free 
Before the wind. A solid man of Boston. 
A comfortable man, with dividends, 
And the first salmon, and the first green 

peas. 

A gentleman passes. 
He does not even turn his head to look. 
He 's gone without a word. Here comes 

another, 
A different kind of craft on a taut bow- 
line, — 
Deacon Giles Firmin the apothecary, 
A pious and a ponderous citizen, 
Looking as rubicund and round and splen- 

As the great bottle in his own shop win- 
dow ! 

Deacon Firmin passes. 

And here 's my host of the Three Mariners, 
My creditor and trusty taverner, 
My corporal in the Great Artillery ! 
He 's not a man to pass me without speak- 
ing. 

Cole looks away and passes. 

Don't yaw so ; keep your luff, old hypo- 
crite ! 

Respectable, ah yes, respectable, 

You, with your seat in the new Meeting- 
house, 

Your cow - right on the Common ! But 
who 's this ? 

I did not know the Mary Ann was in ! 

And yet this is my old friend, Captain 
Goldsmith, 

As sure as I stand in the bilboes here. 

Why, Ralph, my boy ! 

Enter Ralph Goldsmith. 



GOLDSMITH. 

Why, Simon, is it you ? 



Set in the bilboes ? 



KEMPTHORN. 

Chock-a-block, you see, 
And without chafing-gear. 

GOLDSMITH. 

And what 's it for ? 

KEMPTHORN. 

Ask that starbowline with the boat-hook 

there, 
That handsome man. 

merry (bowing). 

For swearing. 

KEMPTHORN. 

In this town 
They put sea-captains in the stocks for 

swearing, 
And Quakers for not swearing. So look 

out. 

GOLDSMITH. 

I pray you set him free ; he meant no 

harm ; 
'T is an old habit he picked up afloat. 

MERRY. 

Well, as your time is out, you may come 

down. 
The law allows you now to go at large 
Like Elder Oliver's horse upon the Com- 
mon. 

KEMPTHORN. 

Now, hearties, bear a hand ! Let go and 
haul. 

kempthorn is set free, and comes forward, shak- 
ing Goldsmith's hand. 

KEMPTHORN. 

Give me your hand, Ralph. Ah, how good 

it feels ! 
The hand of an old friend. 

GOLDSMITH. 

God bless you, Simon $ 

KEMPTHORN. 

Now let us make a straight wake for the 
tavern 



486 



CHRISTUS: A MYSTERY 



Of the Three Mariners, Samuel Cole com- 
mander ; 

Where we can take our ease, and see the 
shipping, 

And talk about old times. 

GOLDSMITH. 

First I must pay 
My duty to the Governor, and take him 
His letters and dispatches. Come with 
me. 

KEMPTHORN. 

I'd rather not. I saw him yesterday. 

GOLDSMITH. 

Then wait for me at the Three Nuns and 
Comb. 

KEMPTHORN. 

I thank you. That 's too near to the town 

pump. 
I will go with you to the Governor's, 
And wait outside there, sailing off and 

on ; 
If I am wanted, you can hoist a signal. 



Shall I go with you and point out the way ? 

GOLDSMITH. 

Oh no, I thank you. I am not a stran- 
ger 
Here in your crooked little town. 



How now, sir ? 
Do you abuse our town? [Exit. 

GOLDSMITH. 

Oh, no offence. 

KEMPTHORN. 

Ralph, I am under bonds for a hundred 
pound. 

GOLDSMITH. 

Hard lines. What for ? 

KEMPTHORN. 

To take some Quakers back 
I brought here from Barbadoes in the 

Swallow. 
And how to do it I don't clearly see, 
For one of them is banished, and another 
Is sentenced to be hanged ! What shall I 

do ? 



GOLDSMITH. 

Just slip your hawser on some cloudy 

night ; 

Sheer off, and pay it with the topsail, 

Simon ! [Exeunt 

Scene II. — Street in front of the prison. In 
the background a gateway and several flights 
of steps leading up terraces to the Governor's 
house. A pump on one side of the street. 
John Endicott, Merry, Upsall, and others. 
A drum beats. 

JOHN ENDICOTT. 

Oh shame, shame, shame ! 

MERRY. 

Yes, it would be a shame 
But for the damnable sin of Heresy ! 






JOHN ENDICOTT. 

A woman scourged and dragged about our 

streets ! 

MERRY. 

Well, Roxbury and Dorchester must take 
Their share of shame. She will be whipped 

in each ! 
Three towns, and Forty Stripes save one ; 

that makes 
Thirteen in each. 



JOHN ENDICOTT. 

And are we Jews or Christians ? 
See where she comes, amid a gaping crowd I 
And she a child. Oh, pitiful ! pitiful ! 
There 's blood upon her clothes, her hands, 
her feet ! 

Enter Marshal and a drummer, Edith, 
stripped to the waist, followed by the hangman 
with a scourge, and a noisy crowd. 

EDITH. 

Here let me rest one moment. I am tired* 
Will some one give me water ? 



At his peril 

UPSALL. 

Alas ! that I should live to see this day ! 

A WOMAN. 

Did I forsake my father and my mother 
And come here to New England to see 
this ? 



THE NEW ENGLAND TRAGEDIES 



487 



EDITH. 

I am athirst. Will no one give me water ? 

JOHN endicott (making his way through the 
crowd with water). 

In the Lord's name ! 

edith (drinking). 

In his name I receive it ! 
Sweet as the water of Samaria's well 
This water tastes. I thank thee. Is it 

thou? 
I was afraid thou hadst deserted me. 

JOHN ENDICOTT. 

Never will I desert thee, nor deny thee. 
Be comforted. 

MERRY. 

O Master Endicott, 
Be careful what you say. 

JOHN ENDICOTT. 

Peace, idle babbler ! 

MERRY. 

You '11 rue these words ! 

JOHN ENDICOTT. 

Art thou not better now ? 

EDITH. 

They Ve struck me as with roses. 

JOHN ENDICOTT. 

Ah, these wounds ! 
These bloody garments ! 

EDITH. 

It is granted me 
To seal my testimony with my blood. 

JOHN ENDICOTT. 

O blood-red seal of man's vindictive wrath ! 

roses of the garden of the Lord ! 
I, of the household of Iscariot, 

1 have betrayed in thee my Lord and 

Master ! 

Wenlock: Christison appears above x at the 
window of the prison, stretching out his hands 
through the bars. 

christison. 
Be of good courage, O my child ! my child ! 
Blessed art thou when men shall persecute 
thee! 



Fear not their faces, saith the Lord, feat 

not, 
For I am with thee to deliver thee. 

A CITIZEN. 

Who is it crying from the prison yonder ? 

MERRY. 

It is old Wenlock Christison. 

CHRISTISON. 

Remember 
Him who was scourged, and mocked, and 

crucified ! 
I see his messengers attending thee. 
Be steadfast, oh, be steadfast to the end ! 

edith (with exultation). 

I cannot reach thee with these arms, O 

father ! 
But closely in my soul do I embrace thee 
And hold thee. In thy dungeon and thy 

death 
I will be with thee, and will comfort thee ! 

MARSHAL. 

Come, put an end to this. Let the drum 

beat. 
The drum beats. Exeunt all but John Endi- 
cott. Upsall, and Merry. 

christison. 

Dear child, farewell ! Never shall I be- 
hold 

Thy face again with these bleared eyes of 
flesh ; 

And never wast thou fairer, lovelier, dearer 

Than now, when scourged and bleeding, 
and insulted 

For the truth's sake. O pitiless, pitiless 
town ! 

The wrath of God hangs over thee ; and 
the day 

Is near at hand when thou shalt be aban- 
doned 

To desolation and the breeding of nettles. 

The bittern and the cormorant shall lodge 

Upon thine upper lintels, and their voice 

Sing in thy windows. Yea, thus saith the 
Lord! 

JOHN ENDICOTT. 

Awake ! awake ! ye sleepers, ere too late, 
And wipe these bloody statutes from your 
books I [Exit 



488 



CHRISTUS: A MYSTERY 



MERRY. 

Take heed ; the walls have ears ! 

UPSALL. 

At last, the heart 
Of every honest man must speak or break ! 
Enter Governor Endicott with his halberdiers. 

ENDICOTT. 

What is this stir and tumult in the street ? 

MERRY. 

Worshipful sir, the whipping of a girl, 
And her old father howling from the prison. 

endicott (to his halberdiers). 
Go on. 

CHRISTISON. 

Antiochus ! Antiochus ! 
O thou that slayest the Maccabees ! The 

Lord 
Shall smite thee with incurable disease, 
And no man shall endure to carry thee ! 

MERRY. 

Peace, old blasphemer ! 

CHRISTISON. 

I both feel and see 
The presence and the waft of death go 

forth 
Against thee, and already thou dost look 
Like one that 's dead ! 

merry (pointing). 

And there is your own son, 
Worshipful sir, abetting the sedition. 

endicott. 
Arrest him. Do not spare him. 

merry (aside). 

His own child ! 
There is some special providence takes care 
That none shall be too happy in this world ! 
His own first-born. 

ENDICOTT. 

O Absalom, my son ! 

[Exeunt; the Governor with his halberdiers as- 
cending the steps of his house. 

Scene HI. — The Governor'' s private room. 
Papers upon the table. Endicott and Bel- 

LINGHAM. 

ENDICOTT. 

There is a ship from England has come in, 



Bringing dispatches and much news from 

home. 
His Majesty was at the Abbey crowned ; 
And when the coronation was complete 
There passed a mighty tempest o'er the city, 
Portentous with great thunderings and 

lightnings. 

BELLINGHAM. 

After his father's, if I well remember, 
There was an earthquake, that foreboded 
evil. 

ENDICOTT. 

Ten of the Regicides have been put to death ! 
The bodies of Cromwell, Ireton, and Brad- 

shaw 
Have been dragged from their graves, and 

publicly 
Hanged in their shrouds at Tyburn. 

BELLINGHAM. 

Horrible ! 

ENDICOTT. 

Thus the old tyranny revives again ! 
Its arm is long enough to reach us here, 
As you will see. For, more insulting still 
Than flaunting in our faces dead men's 

shrouds, 
Here is the King's Mandamus, taking from 

us, 
From this day forth, all power to punish 

Quakers. 

BELLINGHAM. 

That takes from us all power ; we are but 

puppets, 
And can no longer execute our laws. 

ENDICOTT. 

His Majesty begins with pleasant words, 
"Trusty and well-beloved, we greet you 

well ; " 
Then with a ruthless hand he strips from 

me 
All that which makes me what I am ; as if 
From some old general in the field, grown 

gray 
In service, scarred with many wounds, 
Just at the hour of victory, he should strip 
His badge of office and his well-gained 

honors, 
And thrust him back into the ranks again. 

Opens the Mandamus and hands it to Belling* 
ham; and, while he is reading, Endicott 
walks up and down the room. 



THE NEW ENGLAND TRAGEDIES 



489 



Here, read it for yourself ; you see his 

words 
Are pleasant words — considerate — not 

reproachful — 
Nothing could be more gentle — or more 

royal ; 
But then the meaning underneath the 

words, 
Mark that. He says all people known as 

Quakers 
Among us, now condemned to suffer death 
Or any corporal punishment whatever, 
Who are imprisoned, or may be obnoxious 
To the like condemnation, shall be sent 
Forthwith to England, to be dealt with 

there 
In such wise as shall be agreeable 
Unto the English law and their demerits. 
Is it not so ? 

bellingham (returning the paper). 
Ay, so the paper says. 

ENDICOTT. 

It means we shall no longer rule the Prov- 
ince ; 
It means farewell to law and liberty, 
Authority, respect for Magistrates, 
The peace and welfare of the Common- 
wealth. 
If all the knaves upon this continent 
Can make appeal to England, and so 

thwart 
The ends of truth and justice by delay, 
Our power is gone forever. We are nothing 
But ciphers, valueless save when we follow 
Some unit ; and our unit is the King ! 
'T is he that gives us value. 

BELLINGHAM. 

I confess 
Such seems to be the meaning of this 

paper, 
But being the King's Mandamus, signed 

and sealed, 
We must obey, or we are in rebellion. 



ENDICOTT. 



tell you, 
you, 



Richard Bellingham, — I tell 



That this is the beginning of a struggle 
Of which no mortal can foresee the end. 
I shall not live to fight the battle for you, 
I am a man disgraced in every way ; 



This order takes from me my self-respect 
And the respect of others. 'T is my doom, 
Yes, my death-warrant, but must be 

obeyed ! 
Take it, and see that it is executed 
So far as this, that all be set at large ; 
But see that none of them be sent to Eng- 
land 
To bear false witness, and to spread reports 
That might be prejudicial to ourselves. 

[Exit Bellingham. 
There 's a dull pain keeps knocking at my 

heart, 
Dolefully saying, " Set thy house in order, 
For thou shalt surely die, and shalt not 

live!" 
For me the shadow on the dial-plate 
Goeth not back, but on into the dark ! 

[Exit. 

Scene IV. — The street. A crowd, reading 
a placard on the door of the Meeting-house. 
Nicholas Upsall among them. Enter John 
Norton. 

NORTON. 

What is this gathering here ? 

UPSALL. 

One William Brand, 
An old man like ourselves, and weak in 

body, 
Has been so cruelly tortured in his prison, 
The people are excited, and they threaten 
To tear the prison down. 

NORTON. 

What has been done ? 



He has been put in irons, with his neck 
And heels tied close together, and so left 
From five in the morning until nine ftfc 

night. 

NORTON. 

What more was done ? 

UPSALL. 

He has been kept five days 
In prison without food, and cruelly beaten, 
So that his limbs were cold, has senses 
stopped. 



What more ? 



NORTON. 



490 



CHRISTUS: A MYSTERY 



UPSALL. 

And is this not enough ? 

NORTON. 

Now hear me. 
This William Brand of yours has tried to 

beat 
Our Gospel Ordinances black and blue ; 
And, if he has been beaten in like manner, 
It is but justice, and I will appear 
In his behalf that did so. I suppose 
That he refused to work. 

UPSALL. 

He was too weak. 
How could an old man work, when he was 
starving ? 



And what is this placard ? 



The Magistrates, 
To appease the people and prevent a tumult, 
Have put up these placards throughout the 

town, 
Declaring that the jailer shalt be dealt with 
Impartially and sternly by the Court. 

NORTON (tearing down the placard). 
Down with this weak and cowardly conces- 
sion, 
This flag of truce with Satan and with 

Sin! 
I fling it in his face ! I trample it 
Under my feet ! It is his cunning craft, 
The masterpiece of his diplomacy, 
To cry and plead for boundless toleration. 
But toleration is the first-born child 
Of all abominations and deceits. 
There is no room in Christ's triumphant 

arm}' 
For tolerationists. And if an Angel 
Preach any other gospel unto you 
Than that ye have received, God's maledic- 
tion 
Descend upon him J Let him be accursed ! 

\_Exit. 

UPSALL. 

Now, go thy ways, John Norton ! go thy 
ways, 

Thou Orthodox Evangelist, as men call 
thee! 

But even now there cometh out of Eng- 
land, 



Like an o'ertaking and accusing conscience, 
An outraged man, to call thee to account 
For the unrighteous murder of his son ! 

[Exit. 

Scene V. — The Wilderness. Enter Edith. 

EDITH. 

How beautiful are these autumnal woods ! 
The wilderness doth blossom like the rose. 
And change into a garden of the Lord ! 
How silent everywhere ! Alone and lost 
Here in the forest, there comes over me 
An inward awfulness. I recall the words 
Of the Apostle Paul : "In journeyings 

often, 
Often in perils in the wilderness, 
In weariness, in painfulness, in watchings, 
In hunger and thirst, in cold and naked-: 

ness ; " 
And I forget my weariness and pain, 
My watchings, and my hunger and my 

thirst. 
The Lord hath said that He will seek his 

flock 
Li cloudy and dark days, and they shall 

dwell 
Securely in the wilderness, and sleep 
Safe in the woods ! Whichever way 1 

turn, 
I come back with my face towards the 

town. 
Dimly I see it, and the sea beyond it. 

cruel town ! I know what waits me 

there, 
And yet I must go back ; for ever louder 

1 hear the inward calling of the Spirit, 
And must obey the voice. O woods, that 

wear 
Your golden crown of martyrdom, blood- 
stained, 
From you I learn a lesson of submission, 
And am obedient even unto death, 
If God so wills it. [Exit 

john endicott (within). 

Edith ! Edith I Edith I 
He enters. 

It is in vain ! I call, she answers not ; 
I follow, but I find no trace of her ! 
Blood ! blood ! The leaves above me and 

around me 
Are red with blood ! The pathways of the 

forest, 
I The clouds that canopy the setting sun 






THE NEW ENGLAND TRAGEDIES 



491 



Aiid even the little river in the meadows 
Are stained with it ! Where'er I look, I 

see it ! 
Away, thou horrible vision ! Leave me ! 

leave me ! 
Alas ! yon winding stream, that gropes its 

way 
Through mist and shadow, doubling on it- 
self, 
At length will find, by the unerring law 
Of nature, what it seeks. O soul of man, 
Groping through mist and shadow, and re- 
coiling 
Back on thyself, are, too, thy devious ways 
Subject to law ? and when thou seemest to 

wander 
The farthest from thy goal, art thou still 

drawing 
Nearer and nearer to it, till at length 
Thou findest, like the river, what thou 
seekest ? [Exit. 



ACT V 

Scene I. — Daybreak. Street in front of Up- 
sall's house. A light in the window. Enter 
John Endicott. 

john endicott. 
O silent, sombre, and deserted streets, 
To me ye 're peopled with a sad procession, 
And echo only to the voice of sorrow ! 

houses full of peacefulness and sleep, 
Far better were it to awake no more 
Than wake to look upon such scenes again ! 
There is a light in Master Upsall's window. 
The good man is already risen, for sleep 
Deserts the couches of the old. 

Knocks at Upsall's door. 

UPSAll (at the window). 

Who 's there ? 

JOHN ENDICOTT. 

&3C\ I so changed you do not know my 
voice ? 

UPSALL. 

1 know you. Have you heard what things 

have happened ? 

JOHN ENDICOTT. 

I have heard nothing. 

UPSALL. 

Stay ; I will come down. 



JOHN ENDICOTT. 

I am afraid some dreadful news awaits me 1 
I do not dare to ask, yet am impatient 
To know the worst. Oh, I am very weary 
With waiting and with watching and pur- 
suing ! 

Enter Upsall. 

UPSALL. 

Thank God, you have come back ! I Ve 

much to tell you. 
Where have you been ? 

JOHN ENDICOTT. 

You know that I was seized, 
Fined, and released again. You know that 

Edith, 
After her scourging in 'mree towns, was 

banished 
Into the wilderness, into the land 
That is not sown ; and there I followed 

her, 
But found her not. Where is she ? 

UPSALL- 

She is here. 

JOHN ENDICOTT. 

Oh, do not speak that word, for it means 
death ! 

UPSALL. 

No, it means life. She sleeps in yonder 
chamber. 

Listen to me. When news of Leddra's 
death 

Reached England, Edward Burroughs, hav- 
ing boldly 

Got access to the presence of the King, 

Told him there was a vein of innocent 
blood 

Opened in his dominions here, which 
threatened 

To overrun them all. The King replied, 

" But I will stop that vein ! " aud he forth- 
with 

Sent his Mandamus to our Magistrates, 

That they proceed no further in this busi* 
ness. 

So all are pardoned, and all set at large. 

JOHN ENDICOTT. 

Thank God ! This is a victory for truth ! 

Our thoughts are free. They cannot be 
shut up 

In prison walls, nor put to death on scaf- 
folds ! 



492 



CHRISTUS: A MYSTERY 



UPSAUL. 

Come in ; the morning air blows sharp and 

cold 
Through the damp streets. 

JOHN ENDICOTT. 

It is the dawn of day 
That chases the old darkness from our 

sky, 
And fills the land with liberty and light. 

[Exeunt. 

Scene II. — The parlor of the Three Mariners. 
Enter Kempthorn. 

KEMPTHORN. 

A dull life this, — a dull life anyway ! 

Ready for sea ; the cargo all aboard, 

Cleared for Barbadoes, and a fair wind 
blowing 

From nor'-nor'-west ; and I, an idle lubber, 

Laid neck and heels by that confounded 
bond ! 

I said to Ralph, says I, " What 's to be 
done ? " 

Says he : " Just slip your hawser in the 
night ; 

Sheer off, and pay it with the topsail, Si- 
mon." 

But that won't do ; because, you see, the 
owners 

Somehow or other are mixed up with it. 

Here are King Charles's Twelve Good 
Rules, that Cole 

Thinks as important as the Rule of Three. 
Heads. 

'* Make no comparisons ; make no long 
meals." 

Those are good rules and golden for a 
landlord 

To hang in his best parlor, framed and 
glazed ! 

u Maintain no ill opinions ; urge no 
healths." 

I drink the King's, whatever he may say, 

And, as to ill opinions, that depends. 

Now of Ralph Goldsmith I 've a good opin- 
ion, 

And of the bilboes I 've an ill opinion ; 

And both of these opinions I '11 maintain 

As long as there 's a shot left in the locker. 
Enter Edward Butter with an ear-trumpet. 

BUTTER. 

Good morning, Captain Kempthorn. 



KEMPTHORN. 

Sir, to yon. 
You 've the advantage of me. I don't 

know you. 
What may I call your name ? 

BUTTER. 

That 's not your name ? 

KEMPTHORN. 

Yes, that 's my name. What 's yours ^ 

BUTTER. 

My name is Butter 
I am the treasurer of the Commonwealth. 

KEMPTHORN. 

Will you be seated ? 

BUTTER. 

What say ? Who 's conceited 

KEMPTHORN. 

Will you sit down ? 

BUTTER. 

Oh, thank you. 



KEMPTHORN. 

Spread yourse 
Upon this chair, sweet Butter. 

butter (sitting down). 

A fine morninj 

KEMPTHORN. 

Nothing 's the matter with it that I kno' 

of. 
I have seen better, and I have seen worse. 
The wind 's nor' west. That 's fair for the 

that sail. 



BUTTER. 

You need not speak so loud ; I understan< 

you. 
You sail to-day. 

KEMPTHORN. 

No, I don't sail to-day. 
So, be it fair or foul, it matters not. 
Say, will you smoke ? There 's choic 
tobacco here. 

BUTTER. 

No, thank you. It 's against the law 
smoke. 



THE NEW ENGLAND TRAGEDIES 



493 



KEMPTHORN. 

Then, will you drink ? There *s good ale 
at this inn. 

BUTTER. 

No, thank you. It 's against the law to 
drink. 

KEMPTHORN. 

Well, almost everything 's against the law 
In this good town. Give a wide berth to 

one thing, 
You 're sure to fetch up soon on something 

else. 

BUTTER. 

And so you sail to-day for dear Old Eng- 
land. 
I am not one of those who think a sup 
Of this New England air is better worth 
Than a whole draught of our Old Eng- 
land's ale. 

KEMPTHORN. 

Nor I. Give me the ale and keep the air. 
But, as I said, I do not sail to-day. 

BUTTER. 

Ah yes ; you sail to-day. 

KEMPTHORN. 

I 'm under bonds 
To take some Quakers back to the Bar- 

badoes ; 
And one of them is banished, and another 
Is sentenced to be hanged. 

BUTTER. 

No, all are pardoned, 

All are set free, by order of the Court ; 

But some of them would fain return to 
England. 

You must not take them. Upon that con- 
dition 

Your bond is cancelled. 

KEMPTHORN. 

Ah, the wind has shifted I 
I pray you, do you speak officially ? 



I always speak officially. To prove it, 
Here is the bond. 

Rising and giving a paper. 



KEMPTHORN. 

And here 's my hand upon it. 
And, look you, when I say I '11 do a thing 
The thing is done. Am I now free to go ? 

BUTTER. 

What say ? 

KEMPTHORN. 

I say, confound the tedious man 
With his strange speaking-trumpet ! Can 
I go? 

BUTTER. 

You 're free to go, by order of the Court. 
Your servant, sir. [Exit. 

kempthorn (shouting from the window). 

Swallow, ahoy ! Hallo ! 
If ever a man was happy to leave Boston, 
That man is Simon Kempthorn of the 
Swallow ! 

Reenter Butter. 

BUTTER. 

Pray, did you call ? 

KEMPTHORN. 

Call ? Yes, I hailed the Swallow. 

BUTTER. 

That 's not my name. My name is Edward 

Butter. 
You need not speak so loud. 

kempthorn {shaking hands). 

Good-by ! Good-by I 



Your servant, sir. 

KEMPTHORN. 

And yours a thousand times ! 
[Exeunt. 

Scene HI. — Governor Endicott's private 
room. An open window. Endicott seated 
in an arm-chair, Bellingham standing 
near. 

endicott. 
O lost, O loved ! wilt thou return no more ? 
O loved and lost, and loved the more when 

lost ! 
How many men are dragged into theii 

graves 
By their rebellious children I I now feel 



494 



CHRISTUS: A MYSTERY 



The agony of a father's breaking heart 
In David's cry, " O Absalom, my son ! " 

BELLINGHAM. 

Can you not turn your thoughts a little 

while 
To public matters? There are papers 

here 
That need attention. 

ENDICOTT. 

Trouble me no more ! 
My business now is with another world. 
Ah, Richard Bellingham ! I greatly fear 
That in my righteous zeal I have been 

led 
To doing many things which, left undone, 
My mind would now be easier. Did I 

dream it, 
Or has some person told me, that John 

Norton 
Is dead ? 

BELLINGHAM. 

ITou have not dreamed it. He is dead, 
And gone to his reward. It was no dream. 

ENDICOTT. 

Then it was very sudden ; for I saw him 
Standing where you now stand c not long 
ago. 

BELLINGHAM. 

8y his own fireside, in the afternoon, 

4 faintness and a giddiness came o'er 

him ; 
And, leaning on the chimney-piece, he 

cried, 
'* The hand of God is on me ! " and fell 

dead. 

ENDICOTT. 

And did not seme one say, or have I 

dreamed it, 
That Humphrey Atherton is dead ? 

BELLINGHAM. 

Alas! 
He too is gone, and by a death as sudden. 
Returning home one evening, at the place 
Where usually the Quakers have been 

scourged, 
lis horse took fright, and threw him to the 

ground, 
So that his brains were dashed about the 

street. 



ENDICOTT. 

I am not superstitious, Bellingham, 
And yet I tremble lest it may have been 
A judgment on him. 

BELLINGHAM. 

So the people think. 

They say his horse saw standing in the 
way 

The ghost of William Leddra, and was I 
frightened. 

And furthermore, brave Richard Daven- 
port, 

The captain of the Castle, in the storm 

Has been struck dead by lightning. 

ENDICOTT. 

Speak no more. 
For as I listen to your voice it seems 
As if the Seven Thunders uttered their 

voices, 
And the dead bodies lay about the streets 
Of the disconsolate city ! Bellingham, 
I did not put those wretched men to 

death- 
I did but guard the passage with the 

sword 
Pointed towards them, and they rushed 

upon it ! 
Yet now I would that I had taken no part 
In all that bloody work. 

BELLINGHAM. 

The guilt of it 
Be on tV jr heads, not ours. 



ENDICOTT. 



Are all set free ? 



BELLINGHAM. 

All are at large. 

ENDICOTT. 

And none have been sent back 
To England to malign us with the King ? 

BELLINGHAM. 

The ship that brought them sails this verj 

hour, 
But carries no one back. 

A distant cannon. 

ENDICOTT. 

What is that gun ? 



THE NEW ENGLAND TRAGEDIES 



495 



BELLINGHAM. 

Her parting signal. Through the window 

there, 
Look, you can see her sails, above the 

roofs, 
Dropping below the Castle, outward bound. 

ENDICOTT. 

white, white, white ! Would that my 

soul had wings 
As spotless as those shining sails to fly 

with ! 
Now lay this cushion straight. I thauk 

you. Hark ! 

1 thought I heard the hall door open and 

shut! 
I thought I heard the footsteps of my boy ! 

BELLINGHAM. 

It was the wind. There 's no one in the 

passage. 

ENDICOTT. 

Absalom, my son ! I feel the world 
Sinking beneath me, sinking, sinking, sink- 
ing ! 
Death knocks ! I go to meet him ! Wel- 
come, Death ! 

Rises, and sinks back dead ; his head falling 
aside upon his shoulder. 

BELLINGHAM. 

ghastly sight ! Like one who has been 
hanged ! 

Endicott ! Endicott ! He makes no an- 
swer ! 

Raises Endicott's head. 

He breathes no more ! How bright this 

signet-ring 
Glitters upon his hand, where he has worn 

it 
Through such long years of trouble, as if 

Death 
Had given him this memento of affection, 
And whispered in his ear, " Remember 

me ! " 
How placid and how quiet is his face, 
Now that the struggle and the strife are 

ended ! 
Only the acrid spirit of the times 
Corroded this true steel. Oh, rest in 

peace, 
Courageous heart ! Forever rest in peace ! 



GILES COREY OF THE SALEM 
FARMS 

DRAMATIS PERSONS 

Giles Corey Farmer. 

John Hathorne Magistrate. 

Cotton Mather Minister of tho Gospel. 

Jonathan Walcot . . . . A youth. 

Richard Gardner .... Sea-Captain. 

John Gloyd Corey's hired man. 

Martha Wife of Giles Corey. 

Tituba An Indian woman. 

Mary Walcot One of the Afflicted. 

The Scene is in Salem in the year 1692. 

PROLOGUE 

Delusions of the days that once have 
been, 

Witchcraft and wonders of the world un- 
seen, 

Phantoms of air, and necromantic arts 

That crushed the weak and awed the 
stoutest hearts, — 

These are our theme to-night ; and vaguely 
here, 

Through the dim mists that crowd the at- 
mosphere, 

We draw the outlines of weird figures cast 

In shadow on the background of the 
Past. 

Who would believe that in the quiet town 
Of Salem, and amid the woods that crown 
The neighboring hillsides, and the sunny 

farms 
That fold it safe in their paternal arms, — 
Who would believe that in those peaceful 

streets, 
Where the great elms shut out the sum- 
mer heats, 
Where quiet reigns, and breathes through 

brain and breast 
The benediction of unbroken rest, — 
Who would believe such deeds could find a 

place 
As these whose tragic history we retrace ? 

'T was but a village then : the goodman 

ploughed 
His ample acres under sun or cloud ; 
The goodwife at her doorstep sat and spuiL, 
And gossiped with her neighbors in the 

sun ; 
The only men of dignity and state 



49<5 



CHRISTUS: A MYSTERY 



Were then the Minister and the Magistrate, 
Who ruled their little realm with iron rod, 
Less in the love than in the fear of God ; 
And who believed devoutly in the Powers 
Of Darkness, working in this world of ours, 
In spells of Witchcraft, incantations dread, 
And shrouded apparitions of the dead. 

Upon this simple folk " with fire and 

flame," 
Saith the old Chronicle, " the Devil came ; 
Scattering his firebrands and his poisonous 

darts, 
To set on fire of Hell all tongues and 

hearts ! 
And 't is no wonder ; for, with all his host, 
There most he rages where he hateth most, 
And is most hated ; so on us he brings 
All these stupendous and portentous 

things ! " 

Something of this our scene to-night will 

show ; 
And ye who listen to the Tale of Woe, 
Be not too swift in casting the first stone, 
Nor think New England bears the guilt 

alone. 
This sudden burst of wickedness and crime 
Was but the common madness of the time, 
When in all lands, that lie within the sound 
Of Sabbath bells, a Witch was burned or 

drowned. 

ACT I 

Scene I. — The woods near Salem Village. 
Enter Tituba, with a basket of herbs. 

TITUBA. 

Here 's monk's-hood, that breeds fever in 
the blood ; 

And deadly nightshade, that makes men see 
ghosts ; 

And henbane, that will shake them with 
convulsions ; 

And meadow-saffron and black hellebore, 

That rack the nerves, and puff the skin 
with dropsy •, 

And bitter-sweet, and briony, and eye- 
bright, 

That cause eruptions, nosebleed, rheuma- 
tisms ; 

I know them, and the places where they 
hide 

In field and meadow ; and I know their 
secrets, 



' 



And gather them because they give mc 

power 
Over all men and women. Armed wit 

these, 
I, Tituba, an Indian and a slave, 
Am stronger than the captain with his sword, 
Am richer than the merchant with his 

money, 
Am wiser than the scholar with his books, 
Mightier than Ministers and Magistrates, 
With all the fear and reverence that attend 

them ! 
For I can fill their bones with aches and 

pains, 
Can make them cough with asthma, shake 

with palsy, 
Can make their daughters see and talk 

with ghosts, 
Or fall into delirium and convulsions. 
I have the Evil Eye, the Evil Hand ; 
A touch from me and they are weak with 

pain, 
A look from me, and they consume and die. 
The death of cattle and the blight of corn, 
The shipwreck, the tornado, and the fire, — 
These are my doings, and they know it not. 
Thus I work vengeance on mine enemies, 
Who, while they call me slave, are slaves to 

me ! 

Exit Tituba. Enter Mather, booted and 
spurred, with a riding-whip in his hand. 



Methinks that I have come by paths un- 
known 
Into the land and atmosphere of Witches ; 
For, meditating as I journeyed on, 
Lo ! I have lost my way ! If I remember 
Rightly, it is Scribonius the learned 
That tells the story of a man who, praying 
For one that was possessed by Evil Spirits, 
Was struck by Evil Spirits in the face ; 
I, journeying to circumvent the Witches 
Surely by Witches have been led astray. 
I am persuaded there are few affairs 
In which the Devil doth not interfere. 
We cannot undertake a journey even, 
But Satan will be there to meddle with it 
By hindering or by furthering. He hath 

led me 
Into this thicket, struck me in the face 
With branches of the trees, and so entan- 
gled 
The fetlocks of my horse with vines and 
brambles. 



THE NEW ENGLAND TRAGEDIES 



497 



That I must needs dismount, and search on 
foot 

For the lost pathway leading to the village. 
Be'enter Tituba. 

What shape is this ? What monstrous ap- 
parition, 

Exceeding fierce, that none may pass that 
way ? 

Tell me, good woman, if you are a 
woman — 

TITUBA. 

I am a woman, but I am not good. 
I am a Witch ! 

MATHER. 

Then tell me, Witch and woman, 
For you must know the pathways through 

this wood, 
Where lieth Salem Village ? 

TITUBA. 

Reverend sir, 
The village is near by. I 'm going there 
With these few herbs. I '11 lead you. Fol- 
low me. 

MATHER. 

First say, who are you ? I am loath to 

follow 
A stranger in this wilderness, for fear 
Of being misled, and left in some morass. 
Who are you ? 

TITUBA. 

I am Tituba the Witch, 
Wife of John Indian. 

MATHER. 

You are Tituba ? 
I know you then. You have renounced the 

Devil, 
And have become a penitent confessor. 
The Lord be praised 1 Go on, I '11 follow 

you. 
Wait only till I fetch my horse, that stands 
Tethered among the trees, not far from 

here. 

TITUBA. 

Let me get up behind you, reverend sir. 

MATHER. 

The Lord forbid ! What would the people 

think, 
If they should see the Reverend Cotton 

Mather 
Ride into Salem with a Witch behind him ? 
The Lord forbid ! 



I do not need a horse ! 
I can ride through the air upon a stick, 
Above the tree-tops and above the houses, 
And no one see me, no one overtake me ! 

[Exeunt 

Scene II. — A room at Justice Hathorne's. 
A clock in the corner. Enter Hathorne and 
Mather. 

hathorne. 
You are welcome, reverend sir, thrice wel* 

come here 
Beneath my humble roof. 

MATHER. 

I thank your Worship. 

HATHORNE. 

Pray you be seated. You must be fatigued 
With your long ride through unfrequented 
woods. 

They sit down. 

MATHER. 

You know the purport of my visit here, — 

To be advised by you, and counsel with 
you, 

And with the Reverend Clergy of the vil- 
lage, 

Touching these witchcrafts that so much 
afflict you ; 

And see with mine own eyes the wonders 
told 

Of spectres and the shadows of the dead, 

That come back from their graves to speak 
with men. 

HATHORNE. 

Some men there are, I have known such, 
who think 

That the two worlds — the seen and the un- 
seen, 

The world of matter and the world of 
spirit — 

Are like the hemispheres upon our maps, 

And touch each other only at a point. 

But these two worlds are not divided 
thus, 

Save for the purposes of common speech. 

They form one globe, in which the parted 
seas 

All flow together and are intermingled, 

While the great continents remain dis- 
tinct. 



49 8 



CHR1STUS: A MYSTERY 



MATHER. 

I doubt it not. The spiritual world 
Lies all about us, and its avenues 
Are open to the unseen feet of phantoms 
That come and go, and we perceive them 

not, 
Save by their influence, or when at times 
A most mysterious Providence permits 

them 
To manifest themselves to mortal eyes. 

HATHORNE. 

You, who are always welcome here among 

us, 
Are doubly welcome now. We need your 

wisdom, 
Your learning in these things, to be our 

guide. 
The Devil hath come down in wrath upon 

us, 
And ravages the land with all his hosts. 

MATHER. 

The Unclean Spirit said, "My name is 
Legion ! " 

Multitudes in the Valley of Destruction ! 

But when our fervent, well - directed 
prayers, 

Which are the great artillery of Heaven, 

Are brought into the field, I see them scat- 
tered 

And driven like autumn leaves before the 
wind. 

HATHORNE. 

You, as a Minister of God, can meet them 
With spiritual weapons ; but, alas ! 
I, as a Magistrate, must combat them 
With weapons from the armory of the 
flesh. 

MATHER. 

These wonders of the world invisible, — 
These spectral shapes that haunt our habi- 
tations, — 
The multiplied and manifold afflictions 
With which the aged and the dying saints 
Have their death prefaced and their age 

imbittered, — 
Are but prophetic trumpets that proclaim 
The Second Coming of our Lord on earth. 
The evening wolves will be much more 

abroad, 
When we are near the evening of the 
world. 



HATHORNE. 

When you shall see, as I have hourly seen, 
The sorceries and the witchcrafts that tor- 
ment us, 
See children tortured by invisible spirits, 
And wasted and consumed by powers un- 
seen, 
You will confess the half has not been told 
you. 

MATHER. 

It must be so. The death-pangs of the 

Devil 
Will make him more a Devil than before ; 
And Nebuchadnezzar's furnace will be 

heated 
Seven times more hot before its putting 

out. 

HATHORNE. 

Advise me, reverend sir. I look to you 
For counsel and for guidance in this matter. 
What further shall we do ? 

MATHER. 

Remember this, 
That as a sparrow falls not to the ground 
Without the will of God, so not a Devil 
Can come down from the air without his 

leave. 
We must inquire. 

HATHORNE. 

Dear sir, we have inquired ; 
Sifted the matter thoroughly through and 

through, 
And then resifted it. 



If God permits 
These Evil Spirits from the unseen regions 
To visit us with surprising informations, 
We must inquire what cause there is foi 

this, 
But not receive the testimony borne 
By spectres as conclusive proof of guilt 
In the accused. 

HATHORNE. 

Upon such evidence 
We do not rest our case. The ways are 

many 
In which the guilty do betray themselves, 

MATHER. 

Be careful. Carry the knife with such ex 

actness. 



THE NEW ENGLAND TRAGEDIES 



499 



That on one side no innocent blood be 

shed 
By too excessive zeal, and on the other 
No shelter given to any work of darkness. 

HATHOKNE. 

For one, I do not fear excess of zeal. 
What do we gain by parleying with the 

Devil ? 
You reason, but you hesitate to act ! 
Ah, reverend sir ! believe me, in such 

cases 
The only safety is in acting promptly. 
'T is not the part of wisdom to delay 
In things where not to do is still to do 
A deed more fatal than the deed we shrink 

from. 
You are a man of books and meditation, 
But I am one who acts. 

MATHER. 

God give us wisdom 
In the directing of this thorny business, 
And guide us, lest New England should 

become 
Of an unsavory and sulphurous bdor 
In the opinion of the world abroad ! 

The clock strikes. 
I never hear the striking of a clock 
Without a warning and an admonition 
That time is on the wing, and we must 

quicken 
Our tardy pace in journeying Heaven- 
ward, 
As Israel did in journeying Canaan-ward ! 
They rise. 

HATHOKNE. 

Then let us make all haste ; and I will 
show you 

In what disguises and what fearful shapes 

The Unclean Spirits haunt this neighbor- 
hood, 

And you will pardon my excess of zeal. 

MATHER. 

Ah, poor New England ! He who hurri- 

canoed 
The house of Job is making now on thee 
One last assault, more deadly and more 

snarled 
With unintelligible circumstances 
Than any thou hast hitherto encountered ! 

\Exeunt. 



Scene III. — A room in Walcot's house. 
Mart Walcot seated in an arm-chair. Ti< 
tuba with a mirror. 



MARY. 

Tell me another story, Tituba. 

A drowsiness is stealing over me 

Which is not sleep ; for, though I close 

mine eyes, 
I am awake, and in another world. 
Dim faces of the dead and of the absent 
Come floating up before me, — floating, 

fading, 
And disappearing. 



What see you ? 



TITUBA. 

Look into this glass. 



MARY. 

Nothing but a golden vapor. 
Yes, something more. An island, with the 

sea 
Breaking all round it, like a blooming 

hedge. 
What land is this ? 

TITUBA. 

It is San Salvador, 
Where Tituba was born. What see you 
now ? 

MARY. 

A man all black and fierce. 

TITUBA. 

That is my father. 
He was an Obi man, and taught me 

magic, — 
Taught me the use of herbs and images. 
What is he doing ? 

MARY. 

Holding in his hand 
A waxen figure. He is melting it 
Slowly before a fire. 

TITUBA. 

And now what see you ? 

MARY. 

A woman lying on a bed of leaves, 
Wasted and worn away. Ah, she is dying J 

TITUBA. 

That is the way the < )l>i men destrov 



$oo 



CHRISTUS: A MYSTERY 



The people they dislike ! That is the way 
Some one is wasting and consuming you. 

MARY. 

You terrify me, Tituba ! Oh, save me 
From those who make me pine and waste 

away! 
Who are they ? Tell me. 

TITUBA. 

That I do not know, 
But you will see them. They will come to 
you. 

MARY. 

No, do not let them come ! I cannot bear 

it! 
I am too weak to bear it ! I am dying. 
Falls into a trance. 

TITUBA. 

Hark ! there is some one coming ! 
Enter Hathorne, Mather, and Walcot. 

WALCOT. 

There she lies, 
Wasted and worn by devilish incantations ! 
my poor sister ! 

MATHER. 

Is she always thus ? 

walcot. 
Nay, she is sometimes tortured by con- 
vulsions. 

MATHER. 

Poor child ! How thin she is ! How wan 
and wasted ! 

HATHORNE. 

Observe her. She is troubled in her sleep. 

MATHER. 

Some fearful vision haunts her. 

HATHORNE. 

You now see 
With your own eyes, and touch with your 

own hands, 
The mysteries of this Witchcraft. 

MATHER. 

One would need 
The hands of Briareus and the eyes of 

Argus 
To see and touch them all. 



HATHORNE. 

You now have entered 
The realm of ghosts and phantoms, — the 

vast realm 
Of the unknown and the invisible, 
Through whose wide-open gates there blows 

a wind 
From the dark valley of the shadow oi 

Death, 
That freezes us with horror. 

Mary (starting). 

Take her hence J 
Take her away from me. I see her there J 
She 's coming to torment me ! 

WALCOT (taking her hand). 

O my sister * j 
What frightens you ? She neither hears 

nor sees me. 
She 's in a trance. 

MARY. 

Do you not see her there f 

TITUBA. 

My child, who is it ? 

MARY. 

Ah, I do not know. 
I cannot see her face. 



TITUBA. 

How is she clad ? 

MARY. 

She wears a crimson bodice. In her ham 
She holds an image, and is pinching it 
Between her fingers. Ah, she tortun 

me ! 
I see her face now. It is Good wife Bishop 
Why does she torture me ? I never 

harmed her ! 
And now she strikes me with an iron rod ! 
Oh, I am beaten ! 

MATHER. 

This is wonderful ! 
I can see nothing ! Is this apparition 
Visibly there, and yet we oannot see it ? 

HATHORNE. 

It is. The spectre is invisible 

Unto our grosser senses, but she sees it. 



; 



THE NEW ENGLAND TRAGEDIES 



501 



MARY. 

Look ! look ! there is another clad in gray ! 
She holds a spindle in her hand, and 

threatens 
To stab me with it ! It is Goodwife 

Corey ! 
Keep her away ! Now she is coming at 

me ! 
mercy ! mercy ! 

WALCOT (thrusting with his sword). 

There is nothing there ! 

MATHER (to HATHORNE). 

Do you see anything ? 

HATHORNE. 

The laws that govern 
The spiritual world prevent our seeing 
Things palpable and visible to her. 
These spectres are to us as if they were 

not. 
Mark her ; she wakes. 

Tituba touches her, and she awakes. 

MARY. 

Who are these gentlemen ? 

WALCOT. 

They are our friends. Dear Mary, are you 
better ? 

MARY. 

Weak, very weak. 

Taking a spindle from her lap, and holding it up. 
How came this spindle here ? 

TITUBA. 

You wrenched it from the hand of Good- 
wife Corey 
When she rushed at you. 

HATHORNE. 

Mark that, reverend sir ! 



It is most marvellous, most inexplicable ! 

TITUBA (picking up a bit of gray cloth from the 
.floor). 

And here, too, is a bit of her gray dress, 
That the sword cut away. 

MATHER. 

Beholding this, 
tt were indeed by far more credulous 



To be incredulous than to believe. 
None but a Sadducee, who doubts of all 
Pertaining to the spiritual world, 
Could doubt such manifest and damning 
proofs ! 

HATHORNE. 

Are you convinced ? 

MATHER (to MARY). 

Dear child, be comforted I 
Only by prayer and fasting can you drive 
These Unclean Spirits from you. An old 

man 
Gives you his blessing. God be with you, 

Mary ! 



ACT II 

Scene I. — Giles Corey's farm. Morning. 
Enter Corey, with a horseshoe and a hammer. 

COREY. 

The Lord hath prospered me. The rising 
sun 

Shines on my Hundred Acres and my 
woods 

As if he loved them. On a morn like this 

I can forgive mine enemies, and thank God 

For all his goodness unto me and mine. 

My orchard groans with russets and pear- 
mains ; 

My ripening corn shines golden in the sun ; 

My barns are crammed with hay, my cattle 
thrive ; 

The birds sing blithely on the trees around 
me ! 

And blither than the birds my heart withir 
me. 

But Satan still goes up and down the earth •; 

And to protect this house from his assaults, 

And keep the powers of darkness from my 
door, 

This horseshoe will I nail upon the thresh- 
old. 

Nails down the horseshoe. 

There, ye night-hags and witches that tor- 
ment 

The neighborhood, ye shall not enter 
here ! — 

What is the matter in the field ? — John 
Gloyd ! 

The cattle are all running to the woods ! — • 

John Gloyd ! Where is the man ? 
Enter John Gloyd. 



502 



CHRISTUS: A MYSTERY 



Look there ! 
What ails the cattle ? Are they all be- 
witched ? 
They run like mad. 

GLOYD. 

They have been overlooked. 

CORBY. 

The Evil Eye is on them sure enough. 
Call all the men. Be quick. Go after 

them ! 

Exit Gloyd and enter Martha. 

MARTHA. 

What is amiss ? 

COREY. 

The cattle are bewitched. 
They are broken loose and making for the 
woods. 

MARTHA. 

Why will you harbor such delusions, Giles ? 

Bewitched ? Well, then it was John Gloyd 
bewitched them ; 

I saw him even now take down the bars 

And turn them loose ! They 're only frolic- 
some. 

COREY. 

The rascal ! 

MARTHA. 

I was standing in the road, 
Talking with Goodwife Proctor, and I saw 
him. 

COREY. 

With Proctor's wife ? And what says 
Goodwife Proctor ? 

MARTHA. 

Sad things indeed ; the saddest you can 

hear 
Of Bridget Bishop. She 's cried out upon ! 

COREY. 

Poor soul ! I 've known her forty year or 
more. 

She was the widow Wasselby ; and then 

She married Oliver, and Bishop next. 

She 's had three husbands. I remember 
well 

My games of shovel-board at Bishop's 
tavern 

In the old merry days, and she so gay 

With her red paragon bodice and her rib- 
bons ! 

Ah, Bridget Bishop always was a Witch ! 



MARTHA. 

They '11 little help her now, — her caps and 

ribbons, 
And her red paragon bodice, and her 

plumes, 
With which she flaunted in the Meeting 

house I 
When next she goes there, it will be foi 

trial. 

COREY. 

When will that be ? 

MARTHA. 

This very day at ten 

COREY. 

Then get you ready. We will go and see 

it/ 
Come ; you shall ride behind me on the pil ] 
lion. 

MARTHA. 

Not I. You know I do not like such things. 
I wonder you should. I do not believe 
In Witches nor in Witchcraft. 



Well, I do. 
There 's a strange fascination in it all, 
That draws me on and on, I know not why. 

MARTHA. 

What do we know of spirits good or ill, 
Or of their power to help us or to harm us 7 



Surely what 's in the Bible must be true. 
Did not an Evil Spirit come on Saul ? 
Did not the Witch of Endor bring the ghost 
Of Samuel from his grave ? The Bible 
says so. 

MARTHA. 

That happened very long ago. 






With God 



There is no long ago. 



MARTHA. 

There is with us. 



And Mary Magdalene had seven devils, 
And he who dwelt among the tombs a 
legion ! 



THE NEW ENGLAND TRAGEDIES 



503 



God's power is infinite. I do not doubt it. 
If in His providence He once permitted 
Such things to be among the Israelites, 
It does not follow He permits them now, 
And among us who are not Israelites. 
But we will not dispute about it, Giles. 
Go to the village, if you think it best, 
And leave me here ; I'll go about my 
work. [Exit into the house. 

COKEY. 

And I will go and saddle the gray mare. 
The last word always. That is woman's 

nature. 
If an old man will marry a young wife, 
He must make up his mind to many things. 
It 's putting new cloth into an old garment, 
When the strain comes, it is the old gives 
way. 

Goes to the doo-r. 
Oh Martha ! I forgot to tell you some- 
thing. 
I 've had a letter from a friend of mine, 
A certain Richard Gardner of Nantucket, 
Master and owner of a whaling-vessel ; 
He writes that he is coming down to see us. 
I hope you '11 like him. 

MARTHA. 

I will do my best. 

COREY. 

That 's a good woman. Now I will be 
gone. 

I've not seen Gardner for this twenty 
year ; 

But there is something of the sea about 
him, — 

Something so open, generous, large, and 
strong, 

It makes me love him better than a bro- 
ther. [Exit. 
Martha comes to the door. 

MARTHA. 

Oh these old friends and cronies of my hus- 
band, 

These captains from Nantucket and the 
Cape, 

That come and turn my house into a tavern 

With their carousing ! Still, there 's some- 
thing frank 

In these seafaring men that makes me 
like them. 



Why, here 's a horseshoe nailed upon the 

doorstep ! 
Giles has done this to keep away the 

Witches. 
I hope this Richard Gardner will bring with 

him 
A gale of good sound common-sense to 

blow 
The fog of these delusions from his brain I 

corey (within). 
Ho ! Martha ! Martha ! 

Entet Corey. 
Have you seen my saddle ? 

MARTHA. 

I saw it yesterday. 

COREY. 

Where did you see it ? 

MARTHA. 

On a gray mare, that somebody was riding 
Along the village road. 

COREY. 

Who was it ? Tell me 

MARTHA. 

Some one who should have stayed at home, 

corey {restraining himself). 

I see ! 
Don't vex me, Martha. Tell me where it 
is. 

MARTHA. 

I 've hidden it away. 

COREY. 

Go fetch it ma. 



Go find it. 

COREY. 

No. I '11 ride down to the village 
Bare-back ; and when the people stare and 

say, 
" Giles Corey, where 's your saddle ? " I 

will answer, 
" A Witch has stolen it." Hew shall you 

like that ? 



I shall not like it. 



504 



CHRISTUS: A MYSTERY 



COREY. 

Then go fetch the saddle. 
[Exit Martha. 
If an old man will marry a young wife, 
Why then — why then — why then — he 

must spell Baker ! 
Enter Martha with the saddle, which she throws 
down. 

MARTHA. 

There ! There 's the saddle. 



COREY. 



Take it up. 



MARTHA. 

I won't ! 

COREY. 

JThen let it lie there. I '11 ride to the vil- 



And say you are a Witch. 

MARTHA. 

No, not that, Giles. 
She takes up the saddle. 

COREY. 

Now come with me, and saddle the gray 
mare 

With your own hands ; and you shall see 
me ride 

Along the village road as is becoming 

Giles Corey of the Salem Farms, your hus- 
band ! [Exeunt. 

Scene II. — The Green in front of the Meeting- 
house in Salem Village. People coming and 
going. Enter Giles Corey. 

COREY. 

A melancholy end ! Who would have 

thought 
That Bridget Bishop e'er would come to 

this ? 
Accused, convicted, and condemned to death 
For Witchcraft ! And so good a woman 

too! 

A FARMER. 

Good morrow, neighbor Corey. 

corey (not hearing him). 

Who is safe ? 
How do I know but under my own roof 
I too may harbor Witches, and some Devil 
Be plotting and contriving against me ? 



FARMER. 

He does not hear. Good morrow, neighboi 
Corey ! 

COREY. 

Good morrow. 

FARMER. 

Have you seen John Proctor lately ? 

COREY. 

No, I have not. 

FARMER. 

Then do not see him, Corey. 

COREY. 

Why should I not ? 

FARMER. 

Because he 's angry with you,. ! 
So keep out of his way. Avoid a quarrel. 

COREY. 

Why does he seek to fix a quarrel on me ? 



FARMER. 

He says you burned his house. 






COREY. 

I burn his house i 
If he says that, John Proctor is a liar 1 
The night his house was burned I was in 

bed, 
And I can prove it ! Why, we are old i 

friends ! 
He could not say that of me. 



I heard him say it. 



He did say it* i 



Then he shall unsay it< 



FARMER. 

He said you did it out of spite to him 

For taking part against you in the quar- 
rel 

You had with your John Gloyd about his 
wages. 

He says you murdered Goodell ; that you 
trampled 

Upon his body till he breathed no more. 

And so beware of him ; that 's my advice ! 

{Exit 



THE NEW ENGLAND TRAGEDIES 



505 



COREY. 

By Heaven ! this is too much ! I '11 seek 

him out, 
And make him eat his words, or strangle 

him. 
I '11 not be slandered at a time like this, 
When every word is made an accusation, 
When every whisper kills, and every man 
Walks with a halter round his neck ! 
Enter Gloyd in haste. 

What now ? 

GLOYD. 

I came to look for you. The cattle — 



Well, 
What of them ? Have you found them ? 

GLOYD. 

They are dead. 
I followed them through the woods, across 

the meadows ; 
Then they all leaped into the Ipswich River, 
And swam across, but could not climb the 

bank, 
And so were drowned. 



You are to blame for this ; 
For you took down the bars, and let them 
loose. 



That I deny. They broke the fences down. 
You know they were bewitched. 

COKEY. 

Ah, my poor cattle ! 

The Evil Eye was on them ; that is true. 

Oay of disaster ! Most unlucky day ! 

Why did I leave my ploughing and my 
reaping 

To plough and reap this Sodom and Gomor- 
rah ? 

Oh, I could drown myself for sheer vexa- 
tion ! [Exit. 

GLOYD. 

He 's going for his cattle. He won't find 

them. 
By this time they have drifted out to sea. 
They will not break his fences any more, 
Though they may break his heart. And 

what care I ? [Exit. 



Scene III. —Corey's kitchen. A table witn 
supper. Martha knitting. 

MARTHA. 

He 's come at last. I hear him in the pas- 
sage. 
Something has gone amiss with him to-day j 
I know it by his step, and by the sound 
The door made as he shut it. He is angry 

Enter Corey with his riding-whip. As he speak* 
he takes off his hat and gloves, and throws then 
down violently. 

COREY. 

I say if Satan ever entered man 
He 's in John Proctor ! 

MARTHA. 

Giles, what is the matter ? 
You frighten me. 

COREY. 

I say if any man 
Can have a Devil in him, then that man 
Is Proctor, — is John Proctor, and no 
other ! 

MARTHA. 

Why, what has he been doing ? 

COREY. 

Everything ! 
What do yo\\ think I heard there in the 
village ? 

MARTHA. 

I 'm sure I cannot guess. What did you 
hear? 

COREY. 

He says I burned his house ! 

MARTHA. 

Does he say that f t 

COREY. 

He says I burned his house. I was in bed 
And fast asleep that night ; and I can 
prove it. 

MARTHA. 

If he says that, I think the Father of Lies 
Is surely in the man. 

COREY. 

He does say that, 
And that I did it to wreak vengeance on 

him 
For taking sides against me in the quarrel 
I had with that John Gloyd about his wages 



506 



CHRISTUS: A MYSTERY 



And God knows that I never bore him mal- 
ice 
For that, as I have told him twenty times ! 

MARTHA. 

It is John Gloyd has stirred him up to this. 
I do not like that Gloyd. I think him 

crafty, 
Not to be trusted, sullen, and untruthful. 
Come, have your supper. You are tired 

and hungry. 

COKEY. 

t 'm angry, and not hungry. 

MARTHA. 

Do eat something. 
You '11 be the better for it. 

corey (sitting down). 

I 'm not hungry. 

MARTHA. 

Let not the sun go down upon your wrath. 

COREY. 

It has gone down upon it, and will rise 
To-morrow, and go down again upon it. 
They have trumped up against me the old 

story 
Of causing Goodell's death by trampling on 

him. 

MARTHA. 

Oh, that is false. I know it to be false. 

COREY. 

He has been dead these fourteen years or 

more. 
Why can't they let him rest ? Why must 

they drag him 
Out of his grave to give me a bad name ? 
I did not kill him. In his bed he died, 
As most men die, because his hour had 

come. 
I have wronged no man. Why should 

Proctor say 
Such things about me ? I will not forgive 

him 
Till he confesses he has slandered me. 
Then, I 've more trouble. All my cattle 

gone. 

MARTHA. 

They will come back again. 



COREY. 

Not in this world, 
Did I not tell you they were overlooked ? 
They ran down through the woods, into the 

meadows, 
And tried to swim the river, and were 

drowned. 
It is a heavy loss. 

MARTHA. 

I 'm sorry for it. 



COREY. 

All my dear oxen dead. I loved them, 

Martha, 
Next to yourself. I liked to look at them, 
And watch the breath come out of their wide 

nostrils, 
And see their patient eyes. Somehow I 

thought 
It gave me strength only to look at them. 
And how they strained their necks against 

the yoke 
If I but spoke, or touched them with the 

goad ! 
They were my friends ; and when Gloyd 

came and told me 
They were all drowned, I could have 

drowned myself 
From sheer vexation ; and I said as much 
To Gloyd and others. 






MARTHA. 

Do not trust John Gloyd 
With anything you would not have re- 
peated. 

COREY. 

As I came through the woods this after- 
noon, 
Impatient at my loss, and much perplexed 
With all that I had heard there in the vil- 
lage, 
The yellow leaves lit up the trees about me 
Like an enchanted palace, and I wished 
I knew enough of magic or of Witchcraft 
To change them into gold. Then suddenly 
A tree shook down some crimson leaves 

upon me, 
Like drops of blood, and in the path before 

me 
Stood Tituba the Indian, the old crone. 

MARTHA. 

Were you not frightened ? 



THE NEW ENGLAND TRAGEDIES 



507 



COREY. 

No, I do not think 
I know the meaning of that word. Why 

frightened ? 
I am not one of those who think the Lord 
Is waiting till He catches them some day 
In the back yard alone ! What should I 

fear? 
She started from the bushes by the path, 
And had a basket full of herbs and roots 
For some witch-broth or other, — the old 

hag! 

MARTHA. 

She has been here to-day. 

COREY. 

With hand outstretched 
She said : " Giles Corey, will you sign the 

Book ? " 
" Avaunt ! " I cried : " Get thee behind 

me, Satan ! " 
At which she laughed and left me. But a 

voice 
Was whispering in my ear continually : 
" Self-murder is no crime. The life of 

man 
Is his, to keep it or to throw away ! " 

MARTHA. 

'T was a temptation of the Evil One ! 
Giles, Giles ! why will you harbor these 
dark thoughts ? 

corey (rising). 
I am too tired to talk. I '11 go to bed. 

MARTHA. 

First tell me something about Bridget 

Bishop. 
How did she look ? You saw her ? You 

were there ? 

COREY. 

£ '11 tell you thafto-morrow, not to-night. 
I '11 go to bed. 

MARTHA. 

First let us pray together. 

COREY. 

I cannot pray to-night. 

MARTHA. 

Say the Lord's Prayer, 
And that will comfort yon. 



COREY. 

I cannot say, 
" As we forgive those that have sinned 

against us," 
When I do not forgive them. 

martha (kneeling on the hearth). 

God forgive yoiL I 

COREY. 

I will not make believe ! I say, to-night 
There 's something thwarts me when I wish 

to pray, 
And thrusts into my mind, instead of 

prayers, 
Hate and revenge, and things that are not 

prayers. 
Something of my old self, — my old, bad 

life, — 
And the old Adam in me, rises up, 
And will not let me pray. I am afraid 
The Devil hinders me. You know I say 
Just what I think, and nothing more nor 

less, 
And, when I pray, my heart is in my 

prayer. 
I cannot say one thing and mean another. 
If I can't pray, I will not make believe ! 
[Exit Corey. Martha continues kneeling. 

ACT III 

Scene I. — Giles Corey's kitchen. Morning. 
Corey and Martha sitting at the breakfast' 
table. 

COREY (rising). 
Well, now I 've told you all I saw and 

heard 
Of Bridget Bishop ; and I must be gone. 

MARTHA. 

Don't go into the village, Giles, to-day. 
Last night you came back tired and out oi 
humor. 

COREY. 

Say, angry ; say, right angry. I was never 
In a more devilish temper in my life. 
All things went wrong with me. 



You were much vexed j 



So don't go to the village. 



508 



CHRISTUS: A MYSTERY 



cokey {going). 

No, I won't. 
I won't go near it. We are going to mow 
The Ipswich meadows for the aftermath, 
The crop of sedge and rowens. 

MARTHA. 

Stay a moment. 
1 want to tell you what I dreamed last 

night. 
Do you believe in dreams ? 

COREY. 

Why, yes and no. 
When they come true, then I believe in 

them ; 
When they come false, I don't believe in 

them. 
But let me hear. What did you dream 

about ? 

MARTHA. 

1 dreamed that you and I were both in 
prison ; 

That we had fetters on our hands and feet ; 

That we were taken before the Magis- 
trates, 

And tried for Witchcraft, and condemned 
to death ! 

I wished to pray ; they would not let me 
pray; 

You tried to comfort me, and they forbade 
it. 

But the most dreadful thing in all my dream 

Was that they made you testify against 
me ! 

And then there came a kind of mist be- 
tween us ; 

1 could not see you ; and I woke in terror. 

I never was more thankful in my life 

Than when I found you sleeping at my 
side ! 

corey (with tenderness). 
It was our talk last night that made you 

dream. 
I 'm sorry for it. I '11 control myself 
Another time, and keep my temper down ! 
I do not like such dreams. — Remember, 

Martha, 
I 'm going to mow the Ipswich River 

meadows ; 
If Gardner comes, you '11 tell him where 

to find me. [Exit. 



MARTHA. 

So this delusion grows from bad to worse. 
First, a forsaken and forlorn old woman, 
Ragged and wretched, and without a 

friend ; 
Then something higher. Now it 's Bridget 

Bishop ; 
God only knows whose turn it will be next I 
The Magistrates are blind, the people mad 5 
If they would only seize the Afflicted Chil= 

dren, 
And put them in the Workhouse, where 

they should be, 
There 'd be an end of all this wickedness. 

[Exit, 

Scene II. — A street in Salem Village. Enter 
Mather and Hathorne. 

MATHER. 

Yet one thing troubles me. 

HATHORNE. 

And what is that ? 

MATHER. 

May not the Devil take the outward shape 
Of innocent persons ? Are we not in dan- 
ger, 
Perhaps, of punishing some who are not 
guilty ? 

HATHORNE. 

As I have said, we do not trust alone 
To spectral evidence. 

MATHER. 

And then again, 

If any shall be put to death for Witch- 
craft, 

We do but kill the body, not the soul. 

The Unclean Spirits that possessed them 
once 

Live still, to enter into other bodies. 

What have we gained ? Surely, there ? s 
nothing gained. 

HATHORNE. 

Doth not the Scripture say, " Thou shalt 

not suffer 
A Witch to live ? " 

MATHER. 

The Scripture sayeth it, 
But speaketh to the Jews ; and we are 

Christians. 
What say the laws of England ? 






THE NEW ENGLAND TRAGEDIES 



509 



HATHORNE. 

They make Witchcraft 
Felony without the benefit of Clergy. 
Witches are burned iu England. You 

have read — 
For you read all things, not a book escapes 

you — 
The famous Demonology of King James ? 

MATHER. 

A curious volume. I remember also 

The plot of the Two Hundred, with one 

Fian, 
The Registrar of the Devil, at their head, 
To drown his Majesty on his return 
From Denmark ; how they sailed in sieves 

or riddles 
Unto North Berwick Kirk in Lothian, 
And, landing there, danced hand in hand, 

and sang, 
"Goodwife, go ye before ! goodwife, go ye ! 
If ye '11 not go before, goodwife, let me ! " 
While Geilis Duncan played the AVitches' 

Reel 
Upon a jews-harp. 

HATHORNE. 

Then you know full well 
The English law, and that in England 

Witches, 
When lawfully convicted and attainted, 
Are put to death. 

MATHER. 

When lawfully convicted ; 
That is the point. 

HATHORNE. 

You heard the evidence 
Produced before us yesterday at the trial 
Of Bridget Bishop. 

MATHER. 

One of the Afflicted, 
I know, bore witness to the apparition 
Of ghosts unto the spectre of this Bishop, 
Saying, " You murdered us ! " of the truth 

whereof 
There was in matter of fact too much sus- 
picion. 

HATHORNE. 

A.nd when she cast her eyes on the Af- 
flicted, 

They were struck down ; and this in such a 
manner 



There could be no collusion in the busi- 
ness. 

And when the accused but laid her hand 
upon them, 

As they lay in their swoons, they straight 
revived, 

Although they stirred not when the others 
touched them. 



MATHER. 

What most convinced me of the woman's 

guilt 
Was finding hidden in her cellar wall 
Those poppets made of rags, with headless 

pins 
Stuck into them point outwards, and 

whereof 
She could not give a reasonable account. 

HATHORNE. 

When you shall read the testimony given 
Before the Court in all the other cases, 
I am persuaded you will find the proof 
No less conclusive than it was in this. 
Come, then, with me, and I will tax youi 

patience 
W r ith reading of the documents so far 
As may convince you that these sorcerers 
Are lawfully convicted and attainted. 
Like doubting Thomas, you shall lay your 

hand 
Upon these wounds, and you will doubt nv> 

more. [Exeunt. 



Scene III. — A room in Corey's house. Mar- 
tha and two Deacons of the church. 

MARTHA. 

Be seated. I am glad to see you here. 

I know what you are come for. You are 

come 
To question me, and learn from my owe 

lips 
If I have any dealings with the Devil ; 
In short, if I 'm a Witch. 

deacon (sitting down). 

Such is our purpose. 
How could you know beforehand why we 
came ? 

MARTHA. 

'T was only a surmise. 



5io 



CHRISTUS: A MYSTERY 



DEACON. 

We came to ask you, 
i r ou being with us in church covenant, 
What part you have, if any, in these 
matters. 

MARTHA. 

And I make answer, No part whatsoever. 
I am a farmer's wife, a working woman ; 
You see my spinning-wheel, you see my 

loom, 
You know the duties of a farmer's wife, 
And are not ignorant that my life among 

you 
Has been without reproach until this day. 
Is it not true ? 

DEACON. 

So much we 're bound to own ; 
And say it frankly, and without reserve. 

MARTHA. 

I 've heard the idle tales that are abroad ; 
I 've heard it whispered that I am a Witch ; 
I cannot help it. I do net believe 
In any Witchcraft. It is a delusion. 

DEACON. 

How can you say that it is a delusion, 
When all our learned and good men believe 

it? — 
Our Ministers and worshipful Magistrates ? 

MARTHA. 

Their eyes are blinded, and see not the 

truth. 
Perhaps one day they will be open to it. 

DEACON. 

You answer boldly. The Afflicted Chil- 
dren 
Say you appeared to them. 



What clothes I came in ? 



And did they say 



DEACON. 

No, they could not tell. 
They said that you foresaw our visit here. 
And blinded them, so that they could not 

see 
The clothes you wore. 

MARTHA. 

The cunning, crafty girls ! 
I say to you, in all sincerity, 



I never have appeared to any one 

In my own person. If the Devil takes 

My shape to hurt these children, or afflict 

them, 
I am not guilty of it. And I say 
It 's all a mere delusion of the senses. 

DEACON. 

I greatly fear that you will find too late 
It is not so. 

martha (rising). 

They do accuse me falsely 
It is delusion, or it is deceit. 
There is a story in the ancient Scriptures 
Vfhich much I wonder comes not to youi 

minds. 
Let me repeat it to you. 



DEACON. 



MARTHA. 



We will hear it. 



It came to pass that Naboth had a vineyard 
Hard by the palace of the King called 

Ahab. 
And Ahab, King of Israel, spake to Naboth, 
And said to him, Give unto me thy vine- 
yard, 
That I may have it for a garden of herbs, 
And I will give a better vineyard for it, 
Or, if it seemeth good to thee, its worth 
In money. And then Naboth said to Ahab, 
The Lord forbid it me that I should give 
The inheritance of my fathers unto thee. 
And Ahab came into his bouse displeased 
And heavy at the words which Naboth 

spake, 
And laid him down upon his bed, and 

turned 
His face away ; and he would eat no bread. 
And Jezebel, the wife of Ahab, came 
And said to him, Why is thy spirit sad ? 
And he said unto her, Because I spake 
To Naboth, to the Jezreelite, and said, 
Give me thy vineyard ; and he answered^ 

saying, 
I will not give my vineyard unto thee. 
And Jezebel, the wife of Ahab, said, 
Dost thou not rule the realm of Israel ? 
Arise, eat bread, and let thy heart be 

merry ; 
I will give Naboth's vineyard unto thee. 
So she wrote letters in King Ahab's name, 
And sealed them with his seal, and sent the 

letters 
Unto the elders that were in his city 



THE NEW ENGLAND TRAGEDIES 



5" 



Dwelling with Naboth, and unto the nobles ; 
And in the letters wrote, Proclaim a fast ; 
And set this Naboth high among the 

people, 
And set two men, the sons of Belial, 
Before him, to bear witness and to say, 
Thou didst blaspheme against God and the 

King ; 
And carry him out and stone him, that he 

die ! 
And the elders and the nobles in the city 
Did even as Jezebel, the wife of Ahab, 
Had sent to them and written in the letters. 

And then it came to pass, when Ahab 

heard 
Naboth was dead, that Ahab rose to go 
Down unto Naboth's vineyard, and to take 
Possession of it. And the word of God 
Came to Elijah, saying to him, Arise, 
Go down to meet the King of Israel 
In Naboth 's vineyard, whither he hath gone 
To take possession. Thou shalt speak to 

him, 
Saying, Thus saith the Lord ! What ! hast 

thou killed 
And also taken posse sion ? In the place 
Wherein the dogs have licked the blood or 

Naboth 
Shall the dogs lick thy blood, — ay, even 
thine ! 
Both of the Beacons start from their seats. 
And Ahab then, the King of Israel, 
Said, Hast thou found me, O mine enemy ? 
Elijah the Prophet answered, I have found 

thee ! 
So will it be with those who have stirred up 
The Sons of Belial here to bear false wit- 
ness 
And swear away the lives of innocent peo- 
ple ; 
Their enemy will find them out at last, 
The Prophet's voice will thunder, I have 
found thee ! [Exeunt. 

Scene IV. — Meadows on Ipswich River. Corey 
and his men mowing ; Corey in advance. 

COREY. 

Well done, my men. You see, I lead the 

field ! 
I 'm an old man, but I can swing a scythe 
Better than most of you, though you be 

younger. 
Hangs his scyihe upon a tree. 



gloyd (aside to the others). 
How strong he is ! It 's supernatural. 
No man so old as he is has such strength. 
The Devil helps him ! 

COREY (wiping his forehead). 

Now we '11 rest awhile, 

And take our nooning. What 's the mat- 
ter with you ? 

You are not angry with me, — are you, 
Gloyd ? 

Come, come, we will not quarrel. Let 's be 
friends. 

It 's an old story, that the Raven said, 

"Bead the Third of Colossians and fif- 
teenth." 

GLOYD. 

Jfou 're handier at the scythe, but I can 

beat you 
At wrestling. 

COREY. 

Well, perhaps so. I don't know. 
I never wrestled with you. Why, you 're 

vexed ! 
Come, come, don't bear a grudge. 

GLOYD. 

You are afraid. 

COREY. 

What should I be afraid of? All beat- 
witness 
The challenge comes from him. Now, 
then, my man. 
They wrestle, and Gloyd is thrown. 

ONE OF THE MEN. 

That 's a fair fall. 

ANOTHER. 

'T was nothing but a foil i 

OTHERS. 

You 've hurt him ! 

corey (helping gloyd rise). 

No ; this meadow-land is soft 
You 're not hurt, — are you, Gloyd ? 

gloyd (rising). 

No, not much hurt 

COREY. 

Well, then, shake hands ; and there 's an 

end of it. 



512 



CHRISTUS: A MYSTERY 



How do you like that Cornish hug, my lad ? 
And now we '11 see what 's in our basket 
here. 

gloyd (aside). 
The Devil and all his imps are in that 

-man ! 
The clutch of his ten fingers burns like 

fire ! 

COREY (reverentially taking off Ms hat). 
God bless the food He hath provided for 

us, 
And make us thankful for it, for Christ's 

sake ! 
He lifts up a keg of cider, and drinks from it. 

GLOYD. 

Do you see that ? Don't tell me it 's not 

Witchcraft. 
Two of us could not lift that cask as he 

does ! 

Corey puts down the keg, and opens a basket. A 
voice is heard calling. 

VOICE. 

Ho ! Corey, Corey ! 



What is that ? I surely 
Heard some one calling me by name ! 

VOICE. 

Giles Corey ! 
Enter a boy, running, and out of breath. 

BOY. 

Is Master Corey here ? 



COREY. 



Yes, here I am. 



BOY. 

O Master Corey ! 

COREY. 

Well? 



BOY. 

Your wife — your wife ■ 



What *s happened to my wife ? 



She *s sent to prison ! 



COREY. 

The dream ! the dream ! O God, be mer- 
ciful ! 

BOY. 

She sent me here to tell you. 






corey (putting on his jacket). 

Where 's my horse ? 

Don't stand there staring, fellows. Where 'a 

my horse ? [Exit Corey. 

gloyd. 

Under the trees there. Run, old man, run, 
run ! 

You 've got some one to wrestle with you 
now 

Who '11 trip your heels up, with your Cor- 
nish hug. 

If there 's a Devil, he has got you now. 

Ah, there he goes ! His horse is snorting 
fire ! 

ONE OF THE MEN. 

John Gloyd, don't talk so ! It 's a shame 

to talk so ! 
He 's a good master, though you quarrel 

with him. 



gloyd. 

If hard work and low wages make good 

masters, 
Then he is one. But I think otherwise. 
Come, let us have our dinner and be merry, 
And talk about the old man and the 

Witches. 
I know some stories that will make you : 

laugh. 
They sit down on the grass, and eat. 
Now there are Goody Cloyse and Goody 

Good, 
Who have not got a decent tooth between 

them, 
And yet these children — the Afflicted 

Children — 
Say that they bite them, and show marks 

of teeth 
Upon their arms ! 

ONE OF THE MEN. 

That makes the wonder greater. 
That 's Witchcraft. Why, if they had teeth 

like yours, 
'T would be no wonder if the girls were 

bitten ! 



THE NEW ENGLAND TRAGEDIES 



5*3 



GLOYD. 

And then those ghosts that come out of 
their graves 

And cry, " You murdered us ! you mur- 
dered us ! " 

ONE OF THE MEN. 

And all those Apparitions that stick pins 
Into the flesh of the Afflicted Children ! 

GLOYD. 

Oh those Afflicted Children ! They know 
well 

Where the pins come from. I can tell you 
that. 

And there 's old Corey, he has got a horse- 
shoe 

Nailed on his doorstep to keep off the 
Witches, 

And all the same his wife has gone to 
prison. 

ONE OF THE MEN. 

Oh, she 's no Witch. I '11 swear that Good- 
wife Corey 

Never did harm to any living creature. 

She 's a good woman, if there ever was 
one. 

GLOYD. 

Well, we shall see. As for that Bridget 

Bishop, 
She has been tried before ; some years 

ago 
A negro testified he saw her shape 
Sitting upon the rafters in a barn, 
And holding in its hand an egg ; and while 
He went to fetch his pitchfork, she had 

vanished. 
And now be quiet, will you ? I am tired, 
And want to sleep here on the grass a 

little. 

They stretch themselves on the grass. 

ONE OF THE MEN. 

There may be Witches riding through the 
air 

Over our heads on broomsticks at this mo- 
ment, 

Bound for some Satan's Sabbath in the 
woods 

To be baptized. 

GLOYD. 

I wish they 'd take you with them, 
And hold you under water, head and ears. 



Till you were drowned ; and that would 

stop your talking, 
If nothing else will. Let me sleep, I say. 



ACT IV 

Scene I. — The Green in front of the villagi 
Meeting-house. An ^ 
Enter John Gloyd. 



Meeting-house. An excited crowd gathering.. 
Jc 



A FARMER. 

Who will be tried to-day ? 

A SECOND. 

I do not know. 
Here is John Gloyd. Ask him ; he knows. 



FARMER. 



Whose turn is it to-day ? 



John Gloyd, 



GLOYD. 

It 's Goodwife Corey's. 

FARMER. 

Giles Corey's wife ? 

GLOYD. 

The same. She is not mine. 
It will go hard with her with all her pray- 
ing. 
The hypocrite ! She 's always on tier 

knees ; 
But she prays to the Devil when she prays. 
Let us go in. 

A trumpet blows. 

FARMER. 

Here come the Magistrates. 

SECOND FARMER. 

Who 's the tall man in front ? 

GLOYD. 

Oh, that is Hathorne, 
A Justice of the Court, and Quartermaster 
In the Three County Troop. He '11 sift 

the matter. 
That 's Cor win with him ; and the man in 

black 
Is Cotton Mather, Minister of Boston. 

Enter Hathorne and other Magistrates on 
horseback, followed by the Sheriff, constables, 
and attendants on foot. The Magistrates dis- 
mount, and enter the Meeting-house, with the 
rest. 



5H 



CHRISTUS: A MYSTERY 



FARMER. 

The Meeting-house is full. I never saw- 
So great a crowd before. 



No matter. Come. 
We shall find room enough by elbowing 
Our way among them. Put your shoulder 
to it. 



There were not half so many at the trial 
Of Goodwife Bishop. 

GLOYD. 

Keep close after me. 
I '11 find a place for you. They '11 want me 

there. 
I am a friend of Corey's, as you know, 
And he can't do without me just at present. 

[Exeunt. 

Scene II. — Interior of the Meeting - house. 
Mather and the Magistrates seated in front 
of the pulpit. Before them a raised platform. 
Martha in chains. Corey near her. Mary 
Walcot in a chair. A crowd of spectators, 
among them Gloyd. Confusion and murmurs 
during the scene. 



hathorne. 



Call Martha Corey. 



MARTHA. 

I am here. 

HATHORNE. 

Come forward. 
She ascends the platform. 
The Jurors of our Sovereign Lord and Lady 
The King and Queen, here present, do ac- 
cuse you 
Of having on the tenth of June last past, 
And divers other times before and after, 
Wickedly used and practised certain arts 
Called Witchcrafts, Sorceries, and Incanta- 
tions, 
Against one Mary Walcot, single woman, 
Of Salem Village ; by which wicked arts 
The aforesaid Mary Walcot was tor- 
mented, 
Tortured, afflicted, pined, consumed, and 

wasted, 
igainst the peace of our Sovereign Lord 
and Lady 



The King and Queen, as well as of the 

Statute 
Made and provided in that case. What 

say you ? 

MARTHA. 

Before I answer, give me leave to pray. 

HATHORNE. 

We have not sent for you, nor are we here. 
To hear you pray, but to examine you 
In whatsoever is alleged against you. 
Why do you hurt this person ? 

MARTHA. 

I do not, 
I am not guilty of the charge against me. 

MARY. 

Avoid, she-devil ! You may torment me 

now ! 
Avoid, avoid, Witch ! 

MARTHA. 

I am innocent. 
I never had to do with any Witchcraft 
Since I was born. I am a gospel woman. 

MARY. 

You are a gospel Witch ! 

martha (clasping her hands). 

Ah me ! ah me ! 
Oh, give me leave to pray ! 

MARY (stretching out her hands). 

She hurts me now. 
See, she has pinched my hands ! 

HATHORNE. 

Who made these marks 
Upon her hands ? 

MARTHA. 

I do not know. I stand 
Apart from her. I did not touch her hands. 

HATHORNE. 

Who hurt her then ? 



MARTHA. 

I know not. 






HATHORNE. 



She is bewitched 



Dc you think 



THE NEW ENGLAND TRAGEDIES 



515 



MARTHA. 

Indeed I do not think so. 
I am no Witch, and have no faith in 
Witches. 

HATHORNE. 

Then answer me : When certain persons 

came 
To see you yesterday, how did you know 
Beforehand why they came ? 

MARTHA. 

I had had speech ; 
The children said I hurt them, and I 

thought 
These people came to question me about it. 

HATHORNE. 

How did you know the children had been 

told 
To note the clothes you wore ? 

MARTHA. 

My husband told me 
What others said about it. 



HATHORNE. 



Say, did you tell her ? 



Goodman Corey, 



COREY. 

I must speak the truth ; 
[ did not tell her. It was some one else. 

HATHORNE. 

Did you not say your husband told you so ? 
How dare you tell a lie in this assembly ? 
Who told you of the clothes ? Confess the 
truth. 

Martha bites her lips, and is silent. 
You bite your lips, but do not answer me ! 

MARY. 

Ah, she is biting me ! Avoid, avoid ! 

HATHORNE. 

You said your husband told you. 

MARTHA. 

Yes, he told me 
the children said I troubled them. 



HATHORNE. 

Why do you trouble them ? 

MARTHA. 



Then tell me. 



I have denied it, 

MARY. 

She threatened me ; stabbed at me with 

her spindle ; 
And, when my brother thrust her with his 

sword, 
He tore her gown, and cut a piece away. 
Here are they both, the spindle and the 

cloth. 

Shows them. 

HATHORNE. 

And there are persons here who know the 

truth 
Of what has now been said. What answer 

make you ? 

MARTHA. 

I make no answer. Give me leave to pray. 

HATHORNE. 

Whom would you pray to ? 

MARTHA. 

To my God and Father. 

HATHORNE. 

Who is your God and Father ? 

MARTHA. 

The Almighty ! 

HATHORNE. 

Doth he you pray to say that he is God ? 
It is the Prince of Darkness, and not God. 

MARY. 

There is a dark shape whispering in hei 
ear. 

HATHORNE. 

What does it say to you ? 

MARTHA. 

I see no shape. 

HATHORNE. 

Did you not hear it whisper ? 



I heard nothings 



5 i6 



CHRISTUS: A MYSTERY 



MARY. 

What torture ! Ah, what agony I suffer ! 

Falls into a swoon. 

HATHOBNE. 

You see this woman cannot stand before 

you. 
If you would look for mercy, you must look 
In God's way, by confession of your guilt. 
Why does your spectre haunt and hurt this 

person ? 

MARTHA. 

1 do not know. He who appeared of old 
In Samuel's shape, a saint and glorified, 
May come in whatsoever shape he chooses. 
I cannot help it. I am sick at heart ! 

COREY. 

Martha, Martha ! let me hold your hand. 

HATHORNE. 

No ; stand aside, old man. 

MARY (starting up). 

Look there ! Look there ! 

1 see a little bird, a yellow bird, 
Perched on her finger ; and it pecks at me. 
Ah, it will tear mine eyes out ! 



I see nothing. 

HATHORNE. 

*T is the Familiar Spirit that attends her. 

MARY. 

Now it has flown away. It sits up there 
Upon the rafters. It is gone ; is vanished. 

MARTHA. 

Giles, wipe these tears of anger from mine 

eyes. 
Wipe the sweat from my forehead. I am 

faint. 

She leans against the railing. 

MARY. 

Oh, she is crushing me with all her weight ! 

HATHORNE. 

Did you not carry once the Devil's Book 
To this young woman ? 

MARTHA. 

Never. 



Or touched it ? 



HATHORNE. 

Have you signed 7 

MARTHA. 

No ; I never saw it. 






HATHORNE. 

Did you not scourge her with an iron rod ? 

MARTHA. 

No, I did not. If any Evil Spirit 

Has taken my shape to do these evil deeds, 

I cannot help it. I am innocent. 

HATHORNE. 

Did you not say the Magistrates were 

blind ? 
That you would open their eyes ? 






martha (with a scornful laugh). 

Yes, I said that ; 
If you call me a sorceress, you are blind ! 
If you accuse the innocent, you are blind ! 
Can the innocent be guilty ? 

HATHORNE. 

Did you not 
On one occasion hide your husband's saddle 
To hinder him from coming to the Ses- 
sions ? 



I thought it was a folly in a farmer 

To waste his time pursuing such illusions. 



HATHORNE. 

What was the bird that this young woman 

saw 
Just now upon your hand ? 

MARTHA. 

I know no bird. 

HATHORNE. 

Have you not dealt with a Familiar Spirit ? 

MARTHA. 

No, never, never ! 

HATHORNE. 

What then was the Book 
You showed to this young woman, and 

besought her 
To write in it ? 






THE NEW ENGLAND TRAGEDIES 



Si7 



MARTHA. 

Where should I have a book ? 
I showed her none, nor have none. 

MARY. 

The next Sabbath 
Is the Communion Day, but Martha Corey 
Will not be there ! 

MARTHA. 

Ah, you are all against me. 
What can I do or say ? 

HATHORNE. 

You can confess. 

MARTHA. 

No, I cannot, for I am innocent. 

HATHORNE. 

We have the proof of many witnesses 
That you are guilty. 

MARTHA. 

Give me leave to speak. 
Will you condemn nle on such evidence, — 
You who have known me for so many 

years ? 
Will you condemn me in this house of God, 
Where I so long have worshipped with you 

all? 
Where I have eaten the bread and drunk 

the wine 
So many times at our Lord's Table with 

you? 
Bear witness, you that hear me ; you all 

know 
That I have led a blameless life among 

you, 
That never any whisper of suspicion 
Was breathed against me till this accusa- 
tion. 
And shall this count for nothing ? Will 

you take 
My life away from me, because this girl, 
Who is distraught, and not in her right 

mind, 
Accuses me of things I blush to name ? 

HATHORKE. 

What ! is it not enough ? Would you 

hear more ? 
Giles Corey '. 

COREvT. 

I am here. 



HATHORNE. 

Come forward, then. 
Corey ascends the platform. 
Is it not true, that on a certain night 
You were impeded strangely in your 

prayers ? 
That something hindered you ? and that 

you left 
This woman here, your wife, kneeling 

alone 
Upon the hearth ? 

COREY. 

Yes ; I cannot deny it 

HATHORNE. 

Did you not say the Devil hindered you ? 

COREY. 

I think I said some words to that effect. 

HATHORNE. 

Is it not true, that fourteen head of cattle, 
To you belonging, broke from their en* 

closure 
And leaped into the river, and were 

drowned ? 

COREY. 

It is most true. 

HATHORNE. 

And did you not then say 
That they were overlooked ? 

COREY. 

So much I said. 
I see ; they're drawing round me closer, 

closer, 
A net I cannot break, cannot escape from ! 

(Aside.) 

HATHORNE. 

Who did these things ? 

COREY. 

I do not know who did them* 

HATHORNE. 

Then I will tell you. It is some one near 

you ; 
You see her now ; this woman, your ow/» 

wife. 

COREY. 

I call the heavens to witness, it is false T 
She never harmed me, never hindered me 



SiS 



CHRISTUS: A MYSTERY 



In anything but what I should not do. 
And I bear witness in the sight of heaven, 
And in God's house here, that I never knew 

her 
As otherwise than patient, brave, and true, 
Faithful, forgiving, full of charity, 
A virtuous and industrious and good wife ! 

HATHOKNE. 

Tut, tut, man ; do not rant so in your 

speech ; 
You are a witness, not an advocate ! 
Here, Sheriff, take this woman back to 

prison. 

MARTHA. 

Giles, this day you 've sworn away my 

life! 

MARY. 

Go, go and join the Witches at the door. 
Do you not hear the drum ? Do you not 

see them ? 
Go quick. They 're waiting for you. You 

are late. 

[Exit Martha ; Corey following. 

COREY. 

The dream ! the dream ! the dream ! 

HATHORNE. 

What does he say ? 
Giles Corey, go not hence. You are your- 
self 
Accused of Witchcraft and of Sorcery 
By many witnesses. Say, are you guilty ? 

COREY. 

1 know my death is foreordained by you, — 
Mine and my wife's. Therefore I will not 

answer. 

During the rest of the scene he remains silent. 

HATHORNE. 

Do you refuse to plead ? — 'T were better 

for you 
To make confession, or to plead Not 

Guilty. — 
Do you not hear me ? — Answer, are you 

guilty ? 
Do you not know a heavier doom awaits 

you, 
If you refuse to plead, than if found 

guilty ? 
Where is John Gloyd ? 



GLOYD (coming forward). 
Here am I. 

HATHORNE. 

Tell the Court \ 
Have you not seen the supernatural power 
Of this old man ? Have you not seen him 

do 
Strange feats of strength ? 

GLOYD. 

I 've seen him lead the field. 
On a hot day, in mowing, and against 
Us younger men ; and I have wrestled with 

him. 
He threw me like a feather. I have seen 

him 
Lift up a barrel with his single hands, 
Which two strong men could hardly lift to- 
gether, 
And, holding it above his head, drink from 
it. 

HATHORNE. 

That is enough ; we need not question 

further. 
What answer do you make to this, Giles 

Corey ? 

MARY. 

See there ! See there ! 

HATHORNE. 

What is it ? I see nothing. 

MARY. 

Look ! Look ! It is the ghost of Robert 
Goodell, 

Whom fifteen years ago this man did mur- 
der 

By stamping on his body ! In his shroud 

He comes here to bear witness to the 
crime ! 
The crowd shrinks bach from Corey in horror. 

HATHORNE. 

Ghosts of the dead and voices of the liv* 

ing 
Bear witness to your guilt, and you must 

die! 
It might have been an easier death. Your 

doom 
Will be on your own head, and not on ours. 
Twice more will you be questioned of these 

things ; 






THE NEW ENGLAND TRAGEDIES 



519 



Twice more have room to plead or to con- 
fess. 

If you are contumacious to the Court, 

And if, when questioned, you refuse to an- 
swer, 

Then by the Statute you will be condemned 

To the peine forte et dure 1 To have your 
body 

Pressed by great weights until you shall be 
dead ! 

And may the Lord have mercy on your 
soul ! 



ACT V 

Scene I. — Cokey's farm as in Act II., Scene 
I. Enter Richard Gardner, looking round 
him. 



GARDNER. 

Here stands the house as I remember it, 

The four tall poplar-trees before the door ; 

The house, the barn, the orchard, and the 
well, 

With its moss-covered bucket and its 
trough ; 

The garden, with its hedge of currant- 
bushes ; 

The woods, the harvest-fields ; and, far be- 
yond, 

The pleasant landscape stretching to the 
sea. 

But everything is silent and deserted ! 

No bleat of flocks, no bellowing of herds, 

No sound of flails, that should be beating 
now ; 

Nor man nor beast astir. What can this 
mean ? 

Knocks at the door. 

What ho ! Giles Corey ! Hillo-ho ! Giles 

Corey ! — 
No answer but the echo from the barn, 
And the ill-omened cawing of the crow, 
That yonder wings his flight across the 

fields, 
As if he scented carrion in the air. 

Enter Tituba with a basket. 

What woman 's this, that, like an appari- 
tion, 

Haunts this deserted homestead in broad 
day V 

Woman, who are you ? 



TITUBA. 

I 'in Tituba. 
I am John Indian's wife. I am a Witch. 

GARDNKK. 

What are you doing here ? 

TITUBA. 

I am gathering herbs, — 
Cinquefoil, and saxifrage, and pennyroyal 

Gardner (looking at the herbs). 
This is not cinquefoil, it is deadly night 

shade ! 
This is not saxifrage, but hellebore ! 
This is not pennyroyal, it is henbane ! 
Do you come here to poison these good 

people ? 

TITUBA. 

I get these for the Doctor in the Village. 

Beware of Tituba. I pinch the children ; 

Make little poppets and stick pins in them, 

And then the children cry out they are 
pricked. 

The Black Dog came to me, and said, 
" Serve me ! " 

I was afraid. He made me hurt the chil- 
dren. 

GARDNER. 

Poor soul ! She 's crazed, with all these 
Devil's doings. 

TITUBA. 

Will you, sir, sign the Book ? 

GARDNER. 

No, I '11 not sign it. 
Where is Giles Corey ? Do you know 
Giles Corey ? 

TITUBA. 

He 's safe enough. He 's down there in 
the prison. 

GARDNER. 

Corey in prison ? What is he accused of ? 

TITUBA. 

Giles Corey and Martha Corey are in prison 
Down there in Salem Village. Both are 

Witches. 
She came to me and whispered, " Kill the 

children ! " 
Both signed the Book ! 



520 



CHRISTUS: A MYSTERY 



GARDNER. 

Begone, you imp of darkness ! 
Ton Devil's dam ! 

TITUBA. 

Beware of Tituba ! 

[Exit. 

GARDNER. 

How often out at sea on stormy nights, 
When the waves thundered round me, and 

the wind 
Bellowed, and beat the canvas, and my ship 
Clove through the solid darkness, like a 

wedge, 
I 've thought of him, upon his pleasant 

farm, 
Living in quiet with his thrifty housewife, 
And envied him, and wished his fate were 

mine ! 
And now I find him shipwrecked utterly, 
Drifting upon this sea of sorceries, 
And lost, perhaps, beyond all aid of man! 

[Exit. 

Scene II. — The prison. Giles Corey at a 
table on which are some papers. 

COREY. 

Now I have done with earth and all its 

cares ; 
I give my worldly goods to my dear chil- 
dren ; 
My body I bequeath to my tormentors, 
And my immortal soul to Him who made 

it. 
O God ! who in thy wisdom dost afflict me 
With an affliction greater than most men 
Have ever yet endured or shall endure, 
Suffer me not in this last bitter hour 
For any pains of death to fall from thee ! 

Martha is heard singing. 

Arise, O righteous Lord ! 

And disappoint my foes; 
They are but thine avenging- sword, 

Whose wounds are swift to close. 

COKEY. 

Hark, hark ! it is her voice ! She is not 

dead ! 
She lives ! I am not utterly forsaken ! 

martha, singing. 
By thine abounding grace, 
And mercies multiplied, 



I shall awake, and see thy face ; 
I shall be satisfied. 

Corey hides his face in his hands. Enter the 
Jailer, followed by Richard Gardner. 



jailer. 

Here 's a seafaring man, one Richard Gard* 

ner, 
A friend of yours, who asks to speak with 

you. 

Corey rises. They embrace. 

COREY. 

I 'in glad to see you, ay, right glad to see 
you. 

GARDNER. 

And I am most sorely grieved to see you 
thus. 

COREY. 

Of all the friends I had in happier days, 
You are the first, ay, and the only one, 
That comes to seek me out in my disgrace ! 
And you but come in time to say farewell. 
They 've dug my grave already in the field. 
I thank you. There is something in your 

presence, 
I know not what it is, that gives me 

strength. 
Perhaps it is the bearing of a man 
Familiar with all dangers of the deep, 
Familiar with the cries of drowning men, 
With fire, and wreck, and foundering ships 

at sea ! 

GARDNER. 

Ah, I have never known a wreck like 
yours ! 









Would I could save you ! 



It is too late. 



Do not speak of that, 
I am resolved to die. 



GARDNER. 

Why would you die who have so much to 

live for ? — 
Your daughters, and — 



You cannot say the word. 
My daughters have gone from me. They 

are married ; 
They have their homes, their thoughts, 

apart from me ; 



THE NEW ENGLAND TRAGEDIES 



521 



I will not say their hearts, — that were too 

cruel. 
What would you have me do ? 

GARDNER. 

Confess and live. 

COKEY. 

That *s what they said who came here yes- 
terday 
To lay a heavy weight upon my conscience 
By telling me that I was driven forth 
As an unworthy member of their church. 

GARDNER. 

It is an awful death. 

COREY. 

'Tis but to drown, 
And have the weight of all the seas upon 
you. 

GARDNER. 

Say something ; say enough to fend off 

death 
Till this tornado of fanaticism 
Blows itself out. Let me come in between, 

you 

And your severer self, with my plain sense ; 
Do not be obstinate. 

COREY. 

I will not plead. 
If I deny, I am condemned already, 
In courts where ghosts appear as witnesses, 
And swear men's lives away. If I confess, 
Then I confess a lie, to buy a life 
Which is not life, but only death in life. 
I will not bear false witness against any, 
Not even against myself, whom I count 
least. 

Gardner (aside). 
Ah, what a noble character is this ! 

COREY. 

I pray you, do not urge me to do that 
You would not do yourself. I have already 
The bitter taste of death upon my lips ; 
I feel the pressure of the heavy weight 
That will crush out my life within this hour ; 
But if a word could save me, and that 

word 
Were not the Truth ; nay, if it did but 

swerve 
A hair's-breadth from the Truth, I would 

not say it ! 



Gardner (aside). 
How mean I seem beside a man like this ! 

COREY. 

As for my wife, my Martha and my Mar- 

tyr, - 
Whose virtues, like the stars, unseen by day, 
Though numberless, do but await the dark 
To manifest themselves unto all eyes, — 
She who first won me from my evil ways, 
And taught me how to live by her example^ 
By her example teaches me to die, 
And leads me onward to the better life ! 

SHERIFF (without). 

Giles Corey ! Come ! The hour has struck! 

COREY. 

I come 1 
Here is my body ; ye may torture it, 
But the immortal soul ye cannot crush ! 

{Exeunt. 

Scene III. — A street in the Village. Enter 
Geo yd and others. 

GEO YD. 

Quick, or we shall be late ! 

A MAN. 

• That 9 s not the way. 
Come here ; come up this lane. 

gloyd. 

I wonder now 
If the old man will die, and will not speak ? 
He 's obstinate enough and tough enough 
For anything on earth. 

A bell tolls. 

Hark ! What is that ? 

A MAN. 

The passing bell. He 's dead ! 



We are too late. 

[Exeunt in haste. 

Scene IV. — Afield near the graveyard. Giles 
Corey lying dead, with a great stone on his 
breast. The Sheriff' at his head, Richard 
Gardner at his feet. A crowd behind. The 
bell tolling. Enter Hathorne and Mather. 

HATHORNE. 

This is the Potter's Field. Behold the fate 
! Of those who deal in Witchcrafts, ai?d E 
I when questioned, 



522 



CHRISTUS: A MYSTERY 



Refuse to plead their guilt or innocence, 
And stubbornly drag death upon them- 
selves. 

MATHER. 

O sight most horrible ! In a land like this, 
Spangled with Churches Evangelical, 
In wrapped in our salvations, must we seek 
In mouldering statute-books of English 

Courts 
Some old forgotten Law, to do such deeds ? 
Those who lie buried in the Potter's Field 
Will rise again, as surely as ourselves 
That sleep in honored graves with epitaphs ; 
And this poor man, whom we have made a 

victim, 
Hereafter will be counted as a martyr ! 



FINALE 

SAINT JOHN 

Saint John wandering over the face of the Earth. 

SAINT JOHN. . 

The Ages come and go, 

The Centuries pass as Years ; 

My hair is white as the snow, 

My feet are weary and slow, 

The earth is wet with my tears ! 

The kingdoms crumble, and fall 

Apart, like a ruined wall, 

Or a bank that is undermined 

By a river's ceaseless flow, 

And leave no trace behind ! 

The world itself is old ; 

The portals of Time unfold 

On hinges of iron, that grate 

And groan with the rust and the weight, 

Like the hinges of a gate 

That hath fallen to decay ; 

But the evil doth not cease ; 

There is war instead of peace, 

Instead of Love there is hate ; 

And still I must wander and wait, 

Still I must watch and pray, 

Not forgetting in whose sight, 

A thousand years in their flight 

Are as a single day. 

The life of man is a gleam 
Of light, that comes and goes 
Like the course of the Holy Stream, 
The cityless river, that flows 
From fountains no one knows, 
Through the Lake of Galilee, 



Through forests and level lands, 
Over rocks, and shallows, and sands 
Of a wilderness wild and vast, 
Till it findeth its rest at last 
In the desolate Dead Sea ! 
But alas ! alas for me 
Not yet this rest shall be ! 

What, then ! doth Charity fail ? 

Is Faith of no avail ? 

Is Hope blown out like a light 

By a gust of wind in the night ? 

The clashing of creeds, and the strife 

Of the many beliefs, that in vain 

Perplex man's heart and brain, 

Are naught but the rustle of leaves, 

When the breath of God upheaves 

The boughs of the Tree of Life, 

And they subside again ! 

And I remember still 

The words, and from whom they came 

Not he that repeateth the name, 

But he that doeth the will ! 

And Him evermore I behold 
Walking in Galilee, 
Through the cornfield's waving gold. 
In hamlet, in wood, and in wold, 
By the shores of the Beautiful Sea, 
He toucheth the sightless eyes ; 
Before him the demons flee ; 
To the dead He sayeth : Arise ! 
To the living : Follow me ! 
And that voice still soundeth on 
From the centuries that are gone, 
To the centuries that shall be ! 

From all vain pomps and shows, 

From the pride that overflows, 

And the false conceits of men ; 

From all the narrow rules 

And subtleties of Schools, 

And the craft of tongue and pen j 

Bewildered in its search, 

Bewildered with the cry : 

Lo, here ! lo, there, the Church I 

Poor, sad Humanity 

Through all the dust and heat 

Turns back with bleeding feet, 

By the weary road it came, 

Unto the simple thought 

By the great Master taught, 

And that remaineth still : 

Not he that repeateth the name. 

But he that doeth the will ! 



JUDAS MACCABjEUS 



ACT I 

THE CITADEL OF ANTIOCHUS AT 
JERUSALEM 

Scene I. — Antiochus ; Jason. 

ANTIOCHUS. 

Antioch, my Antioch, my city ! 
Queen of the East ! my solace, my delight I 
The dowry of my sister Cleopatra 

When she was wed to Ptolemy, and now 
Won back and made more wonderful by 
me ! 

1 love thee, and I long to be once more 
Among the players and the dancing women 
Within thy gates, and bathe in the Orontes, 
Thy river and mine. Jason, my High- 
Priest, 

For I have made thee so, and thou art 

mine, 
Hast thou seen Antioch the Beautiful ? 



Never, my Lord. 



JASON. 



ANTIOCHUS. 

Then hast thou never seen 
The wonder of the world. This city of 

David 
Compared with Antioch is but a village, 
And its inhabitants compared with Greeks 
Are mannerless boors. 



And mannerless. 



JASON. 

They are barbarians, 



ANTIOCHUS. 

They must be civilized. 
They must be made to have more gods 

than one ; 
And goddesses besides. 



JASON. 

They shall have more 

ANTIOCHUS. 

They must have hippodromes, and games, 

and baths, 
Stage-plays and festivals, and most of all 
The Dionysia. 

JASON. 

They shall have them all. 

ANTIOCHUS. 

By Heracles ! but I should like to see 
These Hebrews crowned with ivy, and 

arrayed 
In skins of fawns, with drums and flutes 

and thyrsi, 
Revel and riot through the solemn streets 
Of their old town. Ha, ha ! It makes me 

merry 
Only to think of it ! — Thou dost not 

laugh. 

JASON. 

Yea, I laugh inwardly. 

ANTIOCHUS. 

The new Greek leaven 
Works slowly in this Israelitish dough ! 
Have I not sacked the Temple, and on the 

altar 
Set up the statue of Olympian Zeus 
To Hellenize it ? 

JASON. 

Thou hast done all this 

ANTIOCHUS. 

As thou wast Joshua once and now ar. 

Jason, 
And from a Hebrew hast become a Greek, 
So shall this Hebrew nation be translated, 



524 



JUDAS MACCABEUS 



Their very natures and their names be 

changed, 
And all be Hellenized. 



It shall be done. 

ANTIOCHTTS. 

Their manners and their laws and way of 

living 
Shall all be Greek. They shall unlearn 

their language, 
And learn the lovely speech of Antioch. 
Where hast thou been to-day ? Thou com- 

est late. 



Playing at discus with the other priests 
In the Gymnasium. 

ANTIOCHUS. 

Thou hast done well. 

There 's nothing better for you lazy priests 

Than discus-playing with the common peo- 
ple. 

Now tell me, Jason, what these Hebrews 
call me 

When they converse together at their 
games. 

JASON. 

Antiochus Epiphanes, my Lord ; 
Antiochus the Illustrious. 



ANTIOCHUS. 

Oh, not that ; 
That is the public cry ; I mean the name 
They give me when they talk among them- 
selves, 
And think that no one listens ; what is 
that? 

JASON. 

Antiochus Epimanes, my Lord ! 

ANTIOCHUS. 

Antiochus the Mad ! Ay, that is it. 

And who hath said it ? Who hath set in 

motion 
That sorry jest ? 

JASON. 

The Seven Sons insane 
Of a weird woman, like themselves insane. 



ANTIOCHUS. 

I like their courage, but it shall not save 

them. 
They shall be made to eat the flesh of 

swine 
Or they shall die. Where are they ? 



Beneath this tower. 



In the dungeons 



ANTIOCHUS. 

There let them stay and starve, 
Till I am ready to make Greeks of them, 
After my fashion. 

JASON. 

They shall stay and starve. — 
My Lord, the Ambassadors of Samaria 
Await thy pleasure. 

ANTIOCHUS. 

Why not my displeasure ? 
Ambassadors are tedious. They are men 
Who work for their own ends, and not for 

mine ; 
There is no furtherance in them. Let them 

go 
To Apollonius, my governor 
There in Samaria, and not trouble me. 
What do they want ? 



ion 



JASON. 

Only the royal sanctio: 
To give a name unto a nameless temple 
Upon Mount Gerizim. 



ANTIOCHUS. 

Then bid them enter. 
This pleases me, and furthers my designs. 
The occasion is auspicious. Bid them 
enter. 

Scene II. — Antiochus ; Jason ; the Samar- 
itan Ambassadors. 

antiochus. 
Approach. Come forward ; stand not at 

the door 
Wagging your long beards, but demean 

yourselves 
As doth become Ambassadors. What seek 
ye? 

AN AMBASSADOR. 

An audience from the King. 



JUDAS MACCABEUS 



525 



ANTIOCHUS. 

Speak, and be brief. 
Waste not the time in useless rhetoric. 
Words are not things. 

ambassador (reading). 

" To King Antiochus, 
The God, Epiphanes ; a Memorial 
From the Sidouians, who live at Sichem." 



Sidonians ? 



ANTIOCHUS. 
AMBASSADOR. 

Ay, my Lord. 



ANTIOCHUS. 

Go on, go on ! 
Vnd do not tire thyself and me with bow- 
ing ! 

ambassador (reading). 
" We are a colony of Medes and Persians." 

ANTIOCHUS. 

No, ye are Jews from one of the Ten 

Tribes ; 
Whether Sidonians or Samaritans 
Or Jews of Jewry, matters not to me ; 
Ye are all Israelites, ye are all Jews. 
When the Jews prosper, ye claim kindred 

with them ; 
When the Jews suffer, ye are Medes and 

Persians ; 
I know that in the days of Alexander 
Ye claimed exemption from the annual 

tribute 
In the Sabbatic Year, because, ye said, 
Your fields had not been planted in that 

year. 

ambassador (reading). 
"Our fathers, upon certain frequent 

plagues, 
And following an ancient superstition, 
Were long accustomed to observe that day 
Which by the Israelites is called the Sab- 
bath, 
And in a temple on Mount Gerizim 
Without a name, they offered sacrifice. 
Now we, who are Sidonians, beseech thee, 
Who art our benefactor and our savior, 
Not to confound us with these wicked Jews, 
But to give royal order and injunction 
To Apollonius in Samaria, 
Thy governor, and likewise to Nicanor, 



Thy procurator, no more to molest us ; 
And let our nameless temple now be named 
The Temple of Jupiter Hellenius." 

ANTIOCHUS. 

This shall be done. Full well it pleaseth 

me 
Ye are not Jews, or are no longer Jews, 
But Greeks ; if not by birth, yet Greeks by 

custom. 
Your nameless temple shall receive the 

name 
Of Jupiter Hellenius. Ye may go ! 

Scene III. — Antiochds ; Jason. 

antiochus. 

My task is easier than I dreamed. These 

people 
Meet me half-way. Jason, didst thou take 

note 
How these Samaritans of Sichem said 
They were not Jews ? that they were 

Medes and Persians, 
They were Sidonians, anything but Jews ? 
'T is of good augury. The rest will follow 
Till the whole land is Hellenized. 

JASON. 

My Lord, 
These are Samaritans. The tribe of Judah 
Is of a different temper, and the task 
Will be more difficult. 

ANTIOCHUS. 

Dost thou gainsay me ? 

JASON. 

I know the stubborn nature of the Jew. 

Yesterday, Eleazer, an old man, 

Being fourscore years and ten, chose rathel 

death 
By torture than to eat the flesh of swine. 

ANTIOCHUS. 

The life is in the blood, and the whole 

nation 
Shall bleed to death, or it shall change its 

faith ! 

JASON. 

Hundreds have fled already to the moun- 
tains 
Of Ephraim, where Judas Maccabreus 
Hath raised the standard of revolt against 
thee. 



526 



JUDAS MACCABEUS 



ANTIOCHUS. 

I will burn down their city, and will make 

it 
Waste as a wilderness. Its thoroughfares 
Shall be but furrows in a field of ashes. 
It shall be sown with salt as Sodom is ! 
This hundred and fifty-third Olympiad 
Shall have a broad and blood-red seal upon 

it, 
Stamped with the awful letters of my name, 
Antiochus the God, Epiphanes ! — 
Where are those Seven Sons ? 



Thy royal pleasure. 



JASON. 

My Lord, they wait 



ANTIOCHUS. 

They shall wait no longer ! 



ACT II 

THE DUNGEONS IN THE CITADEL 

Scene I. — The Mother of the Seven Sons 
alone, listening. 

THE MOTHER. 

Be strong, my heart ! Break not till they 

are dead. 
All, all my Seven Sons ; then burst asunder, 
And let this tortured and tormented soul 
Leap and rush out like water through the 

shards 
Of earthen vessels broken at a well. 

my dear children, mine in life and death, 

1 know not how ye came into my womb ; 

I neither gave vou breath, nor gave you 

life, 
And neither was it I that formed the mem- 
bers 
Of every one of you. But the Creator, 
Who made the world, and made the heavens 

above us, 
Who formed the generation of mankind, 
And found out the beginning of all things, 
He gave you breath and life, and will again 
Of his own mercy, as ye now regard 
Not your own selves, but his eternal law. 
I do not murmur, nay, I thank thee, God, 
That I and mine have not been deemed un- 
worthy 
To suffer for thy sake, and for thy law, 
A.nd for the many sins of Israel. 



Hark ! I can hear within the sound of 



scourges 



I feel them more than ye do, O my sons ! 
But cannot come to you. I, who was wont 
To wake at night at the least cry ye made, 
To whom ye ran at every slightest hurt, — 
I cannot take you now into my lap 
And soothe your pain, but God will take 

you all 
Into his pitying arms, and comfort you, 
And give you rest. 

a voice (within). 
What wouldst thou ask of us r i 
Ready are we to die, but we will never 
Transgress the law and customs of our 
fathers. 

THE MOTHER. 

It is the voice of my first-born ! O brave 
And noble boy ! Thou hast the privilege 
Of dying first, as thou wast born the first. 

the same voice (within). 
God iooketh on us, and hath comfort in us ; 
As Moses in his song of old declared, 
He in his servants shall be comforted. 

the mother. 
I knew thou wouldst not fail ! — He speaks 

no more, 
He is beyond all pain ! 

antiochus (within). 

If thou eat not 
Thou shalt be tortured throughout all the 

members 
Of thy whole body. Wilt thou eat then ? 






second voice (within). 



No. 



THE MOTHER. 

It is Adaiah's voice. I tremble for him. 
I know his nature, devious as the wind, 
And swift to change, gentle and yielding 

always. 
Be steadfast, O my son ! 

the same voice (within). 

Thou, like a fury, 
Takest us from this present life, but God, 
Who rules the world, shall raise us up 

again 
Into life everlasting. 



JUDAS MACCABiEUS 



52? 



THE MOTHER. 

God, I thank thee 
!Tbat thou hast breathed into that timid 

heart 
Courage to die for thee. O my Adaiah, 
Witness of God ! if thou for whom I feared 
Canst thus encounter death, I need not 

fear ; 
The others will not shrink. 

THIRD VOICE (within). 

Behold these hands 
Held out to thee, O King Antiochus, 
Not to implore thy mercy, but to show 
That I despise them. He who gave them 

to me 
Will give them back again. 

THE MOTHER. 

O Avilan, 
It is thy voice. For the last time I hear it ; 
For the last time on earth, but not the last. 
To death it bids defiance, and to torture. 
It sounds to me as from another world, 
And makes the petty miseries of this 
Seem unto me as naught, and less than 

naught. 
Farewell, my Avilan ; nay, I should say 
Welcome, my Avilan ; for I am dead 
Before thee. I am waiting for the others. 
Why do they linger ? 

fourth voice (within). 

It is good, King, 
Being put to death by men, to look for 

hope 
From God, to be raised up again by Him. 
But thou — no resurrection shalt thou have 
To life hereafter. 

THE MOTHER. 

Four ! already four ! 
Three are still living ; nay, they all are 

living, 
Half here, half there. Make haste, An- 
tiochus, 
To reunite us ; for the sword that cleaves 
These miserable bodies makes a door 
Through which our souls, impatient of re- 
lease, 
Rush to each other's arms. 

fifth voice (within). 

Thou hast the power ; 
thou doest what thou wilt. Abide awhile. 



And thou shalt see the power of God, and 

how 
He will torment thee and thy seed. 

the mother. 

O hasten ; 
Why dost thou pause ? Thou who hast 

slain already 
So many Hebrew women, and hast hung 
Their murdered infants round their necks, 

slay me, 
For I too am a woman, and these boys 
Are mine. Make haste to slay us all, 
And hang my lifeless babes about my neck. 

sixth voice (within). 
Think not, Antiochus, that takest in hand 
To strive against the God of Israel, 
Thou shalt escape unpunished, for his wrath 
Shall overtake thee and thy bloody house. 

the mother. 

One more, my Sirion, and then all is ended. 
Having put all to bed, then in my turn 
I will lie down and sleep as sound as they. 
My Sirion, my youngest, best beloved ! 
And those bright golden locks, thst I so oft 
Have curled about these fingers, even now 
Are foul with blood and dust, like a lamb's 

fleece, 
Slain in the shambles. — Not a sound I 

hear. 
This silence is more terrible to me 
Than any sound, than any cry of pain, 
That might escape the lips of one who dies. 
Doth his heart fail him? Doth he fall 

away 
In the last hour from God? O Sirion } 

Sirion, 
Art thou afraid ? I do not hear thy voice. 
Die as thy brothers died. Thou must not 

live ! 



Scene II. — The Mother ; Antiochus j 
Sirion. 

the mother. 
Are they all dead ? 

ANTIOCHUS. 

Of all thy Seven Song 
One only lives. Behold them where they 

lie ; 
How dost thou like this picture ? 



5 28 



JUDAS MACCABEUS 



THE MOTHER. 

God in heaven ! 
Can a man do such deeds, and yet not die 
By the recoil of his own wickedness ? 
Ye murdered, bleeding, mutilated bodies 
That were my children once, and still are 

mine, 
I cannot watch o'er you as Rizpah watched 
In sackcloth o'er the seven sons of Saul, 
Till water drop upon you out of heaven 
And wash this blood away ! I cannot 

mourn 
As she, the daughter of Aiah, mourned the 

dead, 
From the beginning of the barley-harvest 
Until the autumn rains, and suffered not 
The birds of air to rest on them by day, 
Nor the wild beasts by night. For ye have 

died 
A better death, a death so full of life 
That I ought rather to rejoice than 

mourn. — 
Wherefore art thou not dead, O Sirion ? 
Wherefore art thou the only living thing 
Among thy brothers dead ? Art thou 

afraid ? 

ANTIOCHUS. 

O woman, I have spared him for thy sake, 
For he is fair to look upon and comely ; 
And I have sworn to him by all the gods 
That I would crown his life with joy and 

honor, 
Heap treasures on him, luxuries, delights, 
Make him my friend and keeper of my 

secrets, 
If he would turn from your Mosaic Law 
And be as we are ; but he will not listen. 

THE MOTHER, 

My noble Sirion i 

ANTIOCHUS. 

Therefore I beseech thee, 
Who art his mother, thou wouldst speak 

with him, 
And wouldst persuade him. I am sick of 

blood. 

THE MOTHER. 

Yea, I will speak with him and will per- 
suade him. 
Sirion, my son ! have pity on me, 
On me that bare thee, and that gave thee 
suck, 



And fed and nourished thee, and brought 

thee up 
With the dear trouble of a mother's care 
Unto this age. Look on the heavens above* 

thee, 
And on the earth and all that is therein ; 
Consider that God made them out of things 
That were not ; and that likewise in this 

manner 
Mankind was made. Then fear not this 

tormentor ; 
But, being worthy of thy brethren, take 
Thy death as they did, that I may receive 

thee 
Again in mercy with them. 



ANTIOCHUS. 



Yea, I am laughed to scorn. 



I am mocked, 



SIRION. 

Whom wait ye for ? 
Never will I obey the Bang's command- 
ment, 
But the commandment of the ancient Law, 
That was by Moses given unto our fathers. 
And thou, O godless man, that of all others 
Art the most wicked, be not lifted up, 
Nor puffed up with uncertain hopes, up- 
lifting 
Thy hand against the servants of the Lord, 
For thou hast not escaped the righteous 

judgment 
Of the Almighty God, who seeth all things ! 

ANTIOCHUS. 

He is no God of mine ; I fear Him not. 

SIRION. 

My brothers, who have suffered a brief 

pain, 
Are dead ; but thou, Antiochus, shalt suffel 
The punishment of pride. I offer up 
My body and my life, beseeching God 
That He would speedily be merciful 
Unto our nation, and that thou by plagues 
Mysterious and by torments mayest confess 
That He alone is God. 

ANTIOCHUS. 

Ye both shall perish 
By torments worse than any that your 

God, 
Here or hereafter, hath in store for me. 



JUDAS MACCABEUS 



529 



THE MOTHER. 

My Sirion, I am proud of thee ! 

ANTIOCHUS. 

Be silent ! 

Go to thy bed of torture in yon chamber, 

Where lie so many sleepers, heartless mo- 
ther ! 

Thy footsteps will not wake them, nor thy 
voice, 

Nor wilt thou hear, amid thy troubled 
dreams, 

Thy children crying for thee in the night ! 

THE MOTHER. 

Death, that stretchest thy white hands to 

me, 

1 fear them not, but press them to my lips, 
That are as white as thine ; for I am 

Death, 
Nay, am the Mother of Death, seeing these 

sons 
All lying lifeless. — Kiss me, Sirion. 



ACT III 

THE BATTLE-FIELD OF BETH-HORON 

Scene I. — Judas Maccabeus in armor before 
his tent. 

JUDAS. 

The trumpets sound ; the echoes of the 

mountains 
Answer them, as the Sabbath morning 

breaks 
Over Beth-horon and its battle-field, 
Where the great captain of the hosts of 

God, 
A slave brought up in the brick-fields of 

Egypt, 
O'ercame the Amorites. There was no day 
Like that, before or after it, nor shall be. 
The sun stood still ; the hammers of the 

hail 
Beat on their harness ; and the captains 

set 
Their weary feet upon the necks of kings, 
As I will upon thine, Antiochus, 
Thou man of blood ! — Behold the rising 

sun 
Strikes on the golden letters of my ban- 
ner, 
Bd Elohim Yehovah I Who is like 



To thee, O Lord, among the gods ? — 

Alas ! 
I am not Joshua, I cannot say, 
" Sun, stand thou still on Gibeon, and thou 

Moon, 
In Ajalon ! " Nor am I one who wastes 
The fateful time in useless lamentation ; 
But one who bears his life upon his hand 
To lose it or to save it, as may best 
Serve the designs of Him who giveth life. 



Scene II. — Judas Maccabeus ; Jewish Fu- 
gitives. 

judas. 
Who and what are ye, that with furtive 

steps 
Steal in among our tents ? 

FUGITIVES. 

O Maccabaeus, 
Outcasts are we, and fugitives as thou art, 
Jews of Jerusalem, that have escaped 
From the polluted city, and from death. 

JUDAS. 

None can escape from death. Say that ye 

come 
To die for Israel, and ye are welcome. 
What tidings bring ye ? 

FUGITIVES. 

Tidings of despair. 
The Temple is laid waste ; the precious 

vessels, 
Censers of gold, vials and veils and crowns, 
And golden ornaments, and hidden trea- 
sures, 
Have all been taken from it, and the Gen- 
tiles 
With revelling and with riot fill its courts, 
And dally with harlots in the holy places. 

JUDAS. 

All this I knew before. 

FUGITIVES. 

Upon the altar 
Are things profane, things oy the law for* 

bidden ; 
Nor can we keep our Sabbaths or oux 

Feasts, 
But on the festivals of Dionysus 
Must walk in their processions, bearing iv^ 
To crown a drunken god. 



53o 



JUDAS MACCABEUS 



JUDAS. 

This too I know. 
But tell me of the Jews. How fare the 
Jews ? 

FUGITIVES. 

The coming of this mischief hath been sore 
And grievous to the people. All the land 
Is full of lamentation and of mourning. 
The Princes and the Elders weep and wail ; 
The young men and the maidens are made 

feeble ; 
The beauty of the women hath been 

changed. 

JUDAS. 

And are there none to die for Israel ? 

'T is not enough to mourn. Breastplate 

and harness 
Are better things than sackcloth. Let the 

women 
Lament for Israel 



the men should die. 



Both men and 



FUGITIVES. 

women die 



old men and 



young : 
Old Eleazer died : and Mahala 
With all her Seven Sons. 



JUDAS. 

Antiochus, 

At every step thou takest there is left 
A bloody footprint in the street, by which 
The avenging wrath of God will track thee 

out ! 
It is enough. Go to the sutler's tents : 
Those of you who are men, put on such ar- 
mor 
As ye may find ; those of you who are 

women, 
Buckle that armor on ; and for a watch- 
word 
Whisper, or cry aloud, " The Help of 
God." 



Scene HI. — Judas Maccabeus ; Nicanor. 

nicanor. 
Hail, Judas Maccabseus ! 

JUDAS. 

Hail ! — Who art thou 
That comest here in this mysterious guise 
Into our camp unheralded? 



A herald 



Sent from Nicanor. 



JUDAS. 

Heralds come not thus. 
Armed with thy shirt of mail from head to 

heel, 
Thou glidest like a serpent silently 
Into my presence. Wherefore dost thou 

turn 
Thy face from me ? A herald speaks his 

errand 
With forehead unabashed. Thou art £ 

spy. 

Sent by Nicanor. 



NICANOR. 

No disguise avails J 
Behold my face ; I am Nicanor's self. 






JUDAS. 

Thou art indeed Nicanor. I salute thee. 
What brings thee hither to this hostile camp 
Thus unattended ? 

NICANOR. 

Confidence in thee. 
Thou hast the nobler virtues of thy race, 
Without the failings that attend those vir>= 

tues. 
Thou canst be strong, and yet not tyran 

nous, 
Canst righteous be and not intolerant 
Let there be peace between us. 






JUDAS. 

What is peace ? 
Is it to bow in silence to our victors ? 
Is it to see our cities sacked and pillaged, 
Our people slain, or sold as slaves, or flee- 
ing 
At night - time by the blaze of burning 

towns ; 
Jerusalem laid waste ; the Holy Temple 
Polluted with strange gods? Are these 
things peace ? 

NICANOR. 

These are the dire necessities that wait 
On war, whose loud and bloody enginery 
I seek to stay. Let there be peace betweer 
Antiochus and thee. 



JUDAS MACCABEUS 



531 



JDDAS. 

Antiochus ? 
What is Antiochus, that he should prate 
Of peace to me, who am a fugitive ? 
To-day he shall be lifted up ; to-morrow 
Shall not be found, because he is returned 
Unto his dust ; his thought has come to 

nothing. 
There is no peace between us, nor can be, 
Until this banner floats upon the walls 
Of our Jerusalem. 

NICANOR. 

Between that city 
And thee there lies a waving wall of 

tents 
Held by a host of forty thousand foot, 
And horsemen seven thousand. What hast 

thou 
To bring against all these ? 

JUDAS. 

The power of God, 
Whose breath shall scatter your white tents 

abroad, 
As flakes of snow. 

NICANOR. 

Your Mighty One in heaven 
Will not do battle on the Seventh Day ; 
It is his day of rest. 



Go to thy tents. 



JUDAS. 

Silence, blasphemer. 

NICANOR. 

Shall it be war or peace ? 



JUDAS. 

War, war, and only war. Go to thy tents 
That shall be scattered, as by you were 

scattered 
The torn and trampled pages of the Law, 
Blown through the windy streets. 

NICANOR. 

Farewell, brave foe ! 

JUDAS. 

Ho, there, my captains ! Have safe-con- 
duct given 
Unto Nicanor's herald through the camp, 
A.nd come yourselves to me. — Farewell, 
Nieanor ! 



Scene IV. — Judas Maccabeus ; Captains 

AND SOUDIERS. 
JUDAS. 

The hour is come. Gather the host to- 
gether 

For battle. Lo, with trumpets and witb 
songs 

The army of Nieanor comes against us. 

Go forth to meet them, praying in your 
hearts, 

And fighting with your hands. 

CAPTAINS. 

Look forth and see I 
The morning sun is shining on their shields 
Of gold and brass ; the mountains glisten 

with them, 
And shine like lamps. And we, who are so 

few 
And poorly armed, and ready to faint with 

fasting, 
How shall we fight against this multitude ? 

JUDAS. 

The victory of a battle standeth not 

In multitudes, but in the strength that Com- 
eth 

From heaven above. The Lord forbid that 
I 

Should do this thing, and flee away from 
them. 

Nay, if our hour be come, then let us die ; 

Let us not stain our honor. 

CAPTAINS. 

'T is the Sabbath 
Wilt thou fight on the Sabbath, Macca- 
baeus ? 

JUDAS. 

Ay ; when I fight the battles of the Lord, 

I fight them on his day, as on all others. 

Have ye forgotten certain fugitives 

That fled once to these hills, and hid 
themselves 

In caves ? How their pursuers camped 
against them 
j Upon the Seventh Dav, and challenged 
them ? 

And how they answered not, nor cast a 
stone, 

Nor stopped the places where they lay con- 
cealed. 



532 



JUDAS MACCABEUS 



But meekly perished with their wives and 

children, 
Even to the number of a thousand souls ? 
We who are fighting for our laws and lives 
Will not so perish. 

CAPTAINS. 

Lead us to the battle ! 

JUDAS. 

And let our watchword be, " The Help of 

God ! " 
Last night I dreamed a dream ; and in my 

vision 
Beheld Onias, our High-Priest of old, 
Who holding up his hands prayed for the 

Jews. 
This done, in the like manner there ap- 
peared 
An old man, and exceeding glorious, 
With hoary hair, and of a wonderful 
And excellent majesty. And Onias said : 
" This is a lover of the Jews, who prayeth 
Much for the people and the Holy City, — 
God's prophet Jeremias." And the pro- 
phet 
Held forth his right hand and gave unto 

me 
A sword of gold ; and giving it he said : 
" Take thou this holy sword, a gift from 

God, 
And with it thou shalt wound thine adver- 
saries." 

CAPTAINS. 

The Lord is with us ! 

JUDAS. 

Hark ! I hear the trumpets 
Sound from Beth-horon ; from the battle- 
field 
Of Joshua, where he smote the Amorites, 
Smote the Five Kings of Eglon and of Jar- 

muth, 
Of Hebron, Lachish, and Jerusalem, 
As we to-day will smite Nicanor's hosts 
And leave a memory of great deeds behind 



CAPTAINS AND SOLDIERS. 

The Help of God ! 

JUDAS. 

Be Elohim Yehovah I 
Lord, thou didst send thine Angel in the 
time 



Of Esekias, King of Israel, 

And in the armies of Sennacherib 

Didst slay a hundred fourscore and five 

thousand. 
Wherefore, O Lord of heaven, now alst* 

send 
Before us a good angel for a fear, 
And through the might of thy right arm let 

those 
Be stricken with terror that have come this 

day 
Against thy holy people to blaspheme ! 



ACT IV 

THE OUTER COURTS OF THE TEMPLE' 
AT JERUSALEM 

Scene I. — Judas Maccabeus ; Captains; | 
Jews. 



Behold, our enemies are discomfited. 
Jerusalem has fallen ; and our banners 
Float from her battlements, and o'er he? 

gates 
Nicanor's severed head, a sign of terror, 
Blackens in wind and sun. 

CAPTAINS. 

O MaccabseuSj 
The citadel of Antiochus, wherein 
The Mother with her Seven Sons was mur- 
dered, 
Is still defiant. 



Wait. 

CAPTAINS. 

Its hateful aspect 
Insults us with the bitter memories 
Of other days. 



Wait ; it shall disappear 
And vanish as a cloud. First let us cleanse 
The Sanctuary. See, it is become 
Waste like a wilderness. Its golden gates 
Wrenched from their hinges and consumed 

by fire ; 
Shrubs growing in its courts as in a forest j 
Upon its altars hideous and strange idols ; 
And strewn about its pavement at my feet 



JUDAS MACCABEUS 



533 



Its Sacred Books, half-burned and painted 

o'er 
With images of heathen gods. 

JEWS. 

Woe ! woe ! 
Our beauty and our glory are laid waste ! 
The Gentiles have profaned our holy 
places ! 
(Lamentation and alarm of trumpets.) 

JUDAS. 

This sound of trumpets, and this lamenta- 
tion, 
The heart-cry of a people toward the 

heavens, 
I Stir me to wrath and vengeance. Go, my 

captains ; 
I hold you back no longer. Batter down 
The citadel of Antiochus, while here 
We sweep away his altars and his gods. 



Scene II. 



Judas Maccabeus ; Jason ; 
Jews. 



jews. 
Lurking among the ruins of the Temple, 
Deep in its inner courts, we found this man, 
Clad as High-Priest. 

JUDAS. 

I ask not who thou art, 
I know thy face, writ over with deceit 
As are these tattered volumes of the Law 
With heathen images. A priest of God 
Wast thou in other days, but thou art now 
A priest of Satan. Traitor, thou art Jason. 

JASON. 

£ am thy prisoner, Judas Maccabseus, 
And it would ill become me to conceal 
My name or office. 

JUDAS. 

Over yonder gate 
There hangs the head of one who was a 

Greek. 
What should prevent me now, thou man of 

sin, 
From hanging at its side the head of one 
Who born a Jew hath made himself a 

Greek ? 

JASON. 

Justice prevents thee. 



JUDAS. 

Justice ? Thou art stained 
With every crime 'gainst which the Deca* 

logue 
Thunders with all its thunder. 

JASON. 

If not Justice^ 
Then Mercy, her handmaiden. 

. JUDAS. 

When hast thou 
At any time, to any man or woman, 
Or even to any little child, shown mercy ? 

JASON. 

I have but done what King Antiochus 
Commanded me. 



True, thou hast been the weapon 

With which he struck ; but hast been such 
a weapon, 

So flexible, so fitted to his hand, 

It tempted him to strike. So thou hast 
urged him 

To double wickedness, thine own and his. 

Where is this King ? Is he in Antioch 

Among his women still, and from his win- 
dows 

Throwing down gold by handfuls, for the 
rabble 

To scramble for ? 

JASON. 

Nay, he is gone from there s 
Gone with an army into the far East. 

JUDAS. 

And wherefore gone ? 



I know not. For the spaco 
Of forty days almost were horsemen seen 
Running in air, in cloth of gold, and armec? 
With lances, like a band of soldiery ; 
It was a sign of triumph. 

JUDAS. 

Or of death. 
Wherefore art thou not with him ? 



I was left 



For service in the Temple. 



534 



JUDAS MACCABEUS 



JUDAS. 

To pollute it, 
And to corrupt the Jews ; for there are men 
Whose presence is corruption ; to be with 

theni 
Degrades us and deforms the things we do. 

JASON. 

I never made a boast, as some men do, 

Of my superior virtue, nor denied 

The weakness of my nature, that hath made 

me 
Subservient to the will of other men. 

JUDAS. 

Upon this day, the iive-and-twentieth day 
Of the month Caslan, was the Temple here 
Profaned by strangers, — by Antiochus 
And thee, his instrument. Upon this day 
Shall it be cleansed. Thou, who didst lend 

thyself 
Unto this profanation, canst not be 
A witness of these solemn services. 
There can be nothing clean where thou art 

present. 
The people put to death Callisthenes, 
Who burned the Temple gates ; and if 

they find thee 
Will surely slay thee. I will spare thy life 
To punish thee the longer. Thou shalt 

wander 
Among strange nations. Thou, that hast 

cast out 
So many from their native land, shalt 

perish 
In a strange land. Thou, that hast left so 

many 
Unburied, shalt have none to mourn for 

thee, 
Nor any solemn funerals at all, 
Nor sepulchre with thy fathers. — Get thee 

hence ! 

Music. Procession of Priests and people, with 
citherns, harjis^ and ci/mbals. Judas Mac- 
cabeus puts himself at their head, and they 
go into the inner courts. 

Scene III. — Jason alone. 

JASON. 

Through the Gate Beautiful I see them 

come, 
With branches and green boughs and leaves 

of palm, 
And pass into the inner courts. Alas ! 



I should be with them, should be one of 

them, 
But in an evil hour, an hour of weakness, 
That cometh unto all, I fell away 
From the old faith, and did not clutch the 

new, 
Only an outward semblance of belief ; 
For the new faith I cannot make mine own, 
Not being born to it. It hath no root 
Within me. I am neither Jew nor Greek, 
But stand between them both, a renegade 
To each in turn ; having no longer faith 
In gods or men. Then what mysterious 

charm, 
What fascination is it chains my feet, 
And keeps me gazing like a curious child 
Into the holy places, where the priests 
Have raised their altar ? — Striking stones 

together, 
They take fire out of them, and light the 

lamps 
In the great candlestick. They spread the 

veils, 
And set the loaves of shewbread on the 

table. 
The incense burns ; the well-remembered 

odor 
Comes wafted unto me, and takes me back 
To other days. I see myself among them 
As I was then ; and the old superstition 
Creeps over me again ! — A childish 

fancy ! — 
And hark ! they sing with citherns and 

with cymbals, 
And all the people fall upon their faces, 
Praying and worshipping ! — I will away 
Into the East, to meet Antiochus 
Upon his homeward journey, crowned with 

triumph. 
Alas ! to-day I would give everything 
To see a friend's face, or to hear a voice 
That had the slightest tone of comfort 

in it! 



ACT V 
THE MOUNTAINS OF ECBATANA 

Scene I. — Antiochus ; Philip ; Attend- 
ants. 

antiochus. 
Here let us rest awhile. Where are we 

Philip ? 
What place is this ? 



JUDAS MACCABEUS 



535 



PHILIP. 

Ecbatana, my Lord ; 
And yonder mountain range is the Orontes. 

ANTIOCHUS. 

The Orontes is my river at Antioch. 

Why did I leave it ? Why have I been 
tempted 

By coverings of gold and shields and breast- 
plates 

To plunder Elymais, and be driven 

From out its gates, as by a fiery blast 

Out of a furnace ? 

PHILIP. 

These are fortune's changes. 

ANTIOCHUS. 

What a defeat it was ! The Persian horse- 
men 

Came like a mighty wind, the wind Khama- 
seen, 

And melted us away, and scattered us 
" As if we were dead leaves, or desert sand. 

PHILIP. 

Be comforted, my Lord ; for thou hast 

lost 
But what thou hadst not. 

ANTIOCHUS. 

I, who made the Jews 
Skip like the grasshoppers, am made my- 
self 
Jo skip among these stones. 



Be not discouraged. 
Thy realm of Syria remains to thee ; 
That is not lost nor marred. 

ANTIOCHUS. 

Oh, where are now 
The splendors of my court, my baths and 

banquets ? 
Where are my players and my dancing 

women ? 
Where are my sweet musicians with their 

pipes, 
That made me merry in the olden time ? 
I am a laughing-stock to man and brute. 
The very camels, with their ugly faces, 
Mock me and laugh at me. 



PHILIP. 

Alas ! my Lord, 
It is not so. If thou wouldst sleep awhile, 
All would be well. 

ANTIOCHUS. 

Sleep from mine eyes is gon% 
And my heart faileth me for very care. 
Dost thou remember, Philip, the old fable 
Told us when we were boys, in which the 

bear 
Going for honey overturns the hive, 
And is stung blind by bees ? I am that 

beast, 
Stung by the Persian swarms of Elymais. 



When thou art come again to Antioch, 

These thoughts will be as covered and for- 
gotten 

As are the tracks of Pharaoh's chariot- 
wheels 

In the Egyptian sands. 

ANTIOCHUS. 

Ah ! when I come 
Again to Antioch ! When will that be ? 
Alas ! alas ! 

Scene II. — Antiochus ; Philip ; A Mes- 
senger. 

messenger. 
May the King live forever ! 

ANTIOCHUS. 

Who art thou, and whence comest thou ? 



MESSENGER. 



My Lord- 



I am a messenger from Antioch, 
Sent here by Lysias. 

ANTIOCHUS. 

A strange foreboding 
Of something evil overshadows me. 
I am no reader of the Jewish Scriptures ; 
I know not Hebrew ; but my High-Priest 

Jason, 
As I remember, told me of a Prophet 
Who saw a little cloud rise from the sea 
Like a man's hand, and soon the heaven 

was black 
With clouds and rain. Here, Philip, read ; 

I cannot ; 



536 



JUDAS MACCAB^EUS 



I see that cloud. It makes the letters dim 
Before mine eyes. 

philip (reading). 

" To King Antiochus, 
The God, Epiphanes." 

ANTIOCHUS. 

Oh mockery ! 
Even Lysias laughs at me ! — Go on, go on ! 

philip {reading). 
" We pray thee hasten thy return. The 

realm 
Is falling from thee. Since thou hast gone 

from us 
The victories of Judas Maccabseus 
Form all our annals. First he overthrew 
Thy forces at Beth-horon, and passed on, 
And took Jerusalem, the Holy City. 
And then Emmaus fell ; and then Bethsura, 
Ephron and all the towns of Galaad, 
And Maccabseus marched to Camion." 

ANTIOCHUS. 

Enough, enough ! Go call my chariot- 
men ; 
We will drive forward, forward, without 

ceasing, 
Until we come to Antioch. My captains, 
My Lysias, Gorgias, Seron, and Nicanor, 
Are babes in battle, and this dreadful Jew 
Will rob me of my kingdom and my crown. 
My elephants shall trample him to dust ; 
I will wipe out his nation, and will make 
Jerusalem a common burying-place, 
And every home within its walls a tomb ! 

Throws up his hands, and sinks into the arms of 
attendants, who lay him upon a bank. 

PHILIP. 

Antiochus ! Antiochus ! Alas, 

The King is ill ! What is it, O my Lord ? 

ANTIOCHUS. 

Nothing. A sudden and sharp spasm of 

pain, 
As if the lightning struck me, or the knife 
Of an assassin smote me to the heart. 
'T is passed, even as it came. Let us set 

forward. 



See that the chariots be in readiness ; 
We will depart forthwith. 



ANTIOCHUS. 

A moment more. 
I cannot stand. I am become at once 
Weak as an infant. Ye will have to lead 

me. 
Jove, or Jehovah, or whatever name 
Thou wouldst be named, — it is alike to 

me, — 
If I knew how to pray, I would entreat 
To live a little longer. 

PHILIP. 

O my Lord, 
Thou shalt not die ; we will not let thee I 
die ! 

ANTIOCHUS. 

How canst thou help it, Philip ? Oh th» 

pain ! 
Stab after stab. Thou hast no shield j 

against 
This unseen weapon. God of Israel, 
Since all the other gods abandon me, 
Help me. I will release the Holy City, 
Garnish with goodly gifts the Holy Temple. 
Thy people, whom I judged to be un" 

worthy 
To be so much as buried, shall be equal 
Unto the citizens of Antioch. 
I will become a Jew, and will declare 
Through all the world that is inhabited 
The power of God \ 

PHILIP. 

He faints. It is like deatl 
Bring here the royal litter. We will bear 

him 
Into the camp, while yet he lives. 

ANTIOCHUS. 

O Philip, 
Into what tribulation am I come ! 
Alas ! I now remember all the evil 
That I have done the Jews ; and for this 

cause 
These troubles are upon me, and behold 
I perish through great grief in a strange 

land. 

PHILIP. 

Antiochus ! my King ! 

ANTIOCHUS. 

Nay, King no longen 
Take thou my royal robes, my signet ring, 
My crown and sceptre, and deliver them 



MICHAEL ANGELO 



537 



tlnto my son, Antioehus Eupator; 

And unto the good Jews, my citizens, 

In all my towns, say that their dying 
monarch 

Wisheth them joy, prosperity, and health. 

I who, puffed up with pride and arro- 
gance, 



Thought all the kingdoms of the earth 

mine own, 
If I would but outstretch my hand and 

take them, 
Meet face to face a greater potentate, 
King Death — Epiphanes — the Illustrious! 

[Dies. 



MICHAEL ANGELO: A FRAGMENT 



Michel piu che mortal, Angel divino. 

Ariosto. 



Similamente operando all' artista 

Ch' a 1' abito dell' arte e man che trema. 

Dante, Par. xiii. st. 77. 



DEDICATION 

Nothing that is shall perish utterly, 
But perish only to revive again 
In other forms, as clouds restore in 

rain 
The exhalations of the land and sea. 
Men build their houses from the masonry 
Of ruined tombs; the passion and the 

pain 
Of hearts, that long have ceased to beat, 

remain 
To throb in hearts that are, or are to 

be. 
So from old chronicles, where sleep in 

dust 
Names that once filled the world with 

trumpet tones, 
I build this verse; and flowers of song 

have thrust 
Their roots among the loose disjointed 

stones, 
Which to this end I fashion as I 

must. 
Quickened are they that touch the 

Prophet's bones. 



PART FIRST 

I 

PROLOGUE AT ISCHIA 

The Castle Terrace. Vittoria Colonna and 
Julia Gonzaga. 

vittoria. 

Will you then leave me, Julia, and so 

soon, 
To pace alone this terrace like a ghost ? 

JULIA. 

To-morrow, dearest. 

VITTORIA. 

Do not say to-morrow. 
A whole month of to-morrows were too 

soon. 
You must not go. You are a part of me. 

JULIA. 

I must return to Fondi. 



538 



MICHAEL ANGELO 



VITTORIA. 

The old castle 
Needs not your presence. No one waits 

for you. 
Stay one day longer with me. They who 

S° 
Feel not the pain of parting ; it is they 
Who stay behind that suffer. I was think- 
ing 
But yesterday how like and how unlike 
Have been, and are, our destinies. Your 

husband, 
The good Vespasian, an old man, who 

seemed 
A father to you rather than a husband, 
Died in your arms ; but mine, in all the 

flower 
And promise of his youth, was taken from 

me 
As by a rushing wind. The breath of 

battle 
Breathed on him, and I saw his face no 

more, 
Save as in dreams it haunts me. As our 

love 
Was for these men, so is our sorrow for 

them. 
Yours a child's sorrow, smiling through its 

tears ; 
But mine the grief of an impassioned 

woman, 
Who drank her life up in one draught of 

love. 

JULIA. 

Behold this locket. This is the white hair 
Of my Vespasian. This the flower-of-love, 
This amaranth, and beneath it the device, 
Non moritura. Thus my heart remains 
True to his memory ; and the ancient 

castle, 
Where we have lived together, where he 

died, 
Is dear to me as Ischia is to you. 

vittoria. 
I did not mean to chide you. 

JULIA. 

Let your heart 
Find, if it can, some poor apology 
For one who is too young, and feels too 

keenly 
The joy of life, to give up all her days 
To sorrow for the dead. While I am true 



To the remembrance of the man I loved 
And mourn for still, I do not make a show 
Of all the grief I feel, nor live secluded 
And, like Veronica da Gambara, 
Drape my whole house in mourning, and 

drive forth 
In coach of sable drawn by sable horses, 
As if I were a corpse. Ah, one to-day 
Is worth for me a thousand yesterdays. 

vittoria. 
Dear Julia ! Friendship has its jealousies 
As well as love. Who waits for you at 
Fondi ? 

JULIA. 

A friend of mine and yours ; a friend and 

friar. 
You have at Naples your Fra Bernardino ; 
And I at Fondi have my Fra Bastiano, 
The famous artist, who has come from 

Rome 
To paint my portrait. That is not a sin. 



Only a vanity. 



VITTORIA. 
JULIA. 

He painted yours. 

VITTORIA. 

Do not call up to me those days departed, 
When I was young, and all was bright 

about me, 
And the vicissitudes of life were things 
But to be read of in old histories, 
Though as pertaining unto me or mine 
Impossible. Ah, then I dreamed your 

dreams, 
And now, grown older, I look back and 



They were illusions. 

JULIA. 

Yet without illusions 
What would our lives become, what we 

ourselves ? 
Dreams or illusions, call them what you 

will, 
They lift us from the commonplace of life 
To better things. 

VITTORIA. 

Are there no brighter dreamy 
No higher aspirations, than the wish 
To please and to be pleased ? 






MICHAEL ANGELO 



539 



JULIA. 

For you there are : 
I am no saint ; I feel the world we live in 
Comes before that which is to be hereafter, 
And must be dealt with first. 

VITTORIA. 

But in what way ? 

JULIA. 

Let the soft wind that wafts to Us the odor 
Of orange blossoms, let the laughing sea 
And the bright sunshine bathing all the 

world, 
Answer the question. 

VTTTORIA. 

And for whom is meant 
This portrait that you speak of ? 



The Cardinal Ippolito. 

VITTORIA. 



For my friend 



For him ? 

JULIA. 

Yes. for Ippolito the Magnificent. 

'T is always flattering to a woman's pride 

To be admired by one whom all admire. 

VITTORIA. 

Ah, Julia, she that makes herself a dove 
Is eaten by the hawk. Be on your guard. 
He is a Cardinal ; and his adoration 
Should be elsewhere directed. 

JULIA. 

You forget 
The horror of that night, when Barbarossa, 
The Moorish corsair, landed on our coast 
To seize me for the Sultan Soliman ; 
How in the dead of night, when all were 

sleeping, 
He scaled the castle wall ; how I escaped, 
And in my night-dress, mounting a swift 

steed, 
Fled to the mountains, and took refuge 

there 
Among the brigands. Then of all my 

friends 
The Cardinal Ippolito was first 
To come with his retainers to my rescue. 
Could I refuse the only boon he asked 
At such a time, my portrait ? 



VITTORIA. 

I have heard 
Strange stories of the splendors of his pal- 
ace, 
And how, apparelled like a Spanish Prince, 
He rides through Rome with a long Deti- 
nue 
Of Ethiopians and Numidians 
And Turks and Tartars, in fantastic dresses. 
Making a gallant show. Is this the way 
A Cardinal should live ? 

JULIA. 

He is so young j 
Hardly of age, or little more than that ; 
Beautiful, generous, fond of arts and let* 

ters, 
A poet, a musician, and a scholar ; 
Master of many languages, and a player 
On many instruments. In Rome, his pal- 
ace 
Is the asylum of all men distinguished 
In art or science, and all Florentines 
Escaping from the tyranny of his cousin, 
Duke Alessandro. 

VITTORIA. 

I have seen his portrait. 
Painted by Titian. You have painted it 
In brighter colors. 

JULIA. 

And my Cardinal, 
At Itri, in the courtyard of his palace, 
Keeps a tame lion ! 

VITTORIA. 

And so counterfeits 
St. Mark, the Evangelist ! 



Is Michael Angelo. 



Ah, your tame lion 



VITTORIA. 

You speak a name 
That always thrills me with a noble sound, 
As of a trumpet ! Michael Angelo ! 
A lion all men fear and none can tame ; 
A man that all men honor, and the model 
That all should follow ; one who works and 

prays, 
For work is prayer, and consecrates his 

life 
To the sublime ideal of his art, 
Till art and life are one ; a man who holds 



540 



MICHAEL ANGELO 



Such place in all men's thoughts, that when 

they speak 
Of great things done, or to be done, his 

name 
Is ever on their lips. 

JULIA. 

You too can paint 
The portrait of your hero, and in colors 
Brighter than Titian's ; I might warn you 

also 
Against the dangers that beset your path ; 
But I forbear. 

VITTORIA. 

If I were made of marble, 
Of Fior di Persico or Pavonazzo, 
He might admire me : being but flesh and 

blood, 
I am no more to him than other women ; 
That is am nothing. 



Does he ride through Rome 
Upon his little mule, as he was wont, 
With his slouched hat, and boots of Cor- 
dovan, 
As when I saw him last ? 

VITTORIA. 

Pray do not jest. 
I cannot couple with his noble name 
A trivial word ! Look, how the setting 

sun 
Lights up Castel-a-mare and Sorrento, 
And changes Capri to a purple cloud ! 
And there Vesuvius with its plume of 

smoke, 
And the great city stretched upon the 

shore 
As in a dream ! 

JULIA. 

Parthenope the Siren ! 

VITTORIA. 

And yon long line of lights, those sunlit 

windows 
Blaze like the torches carried in procession 
To do her honor ! It is beautiful ! 

JULIA. 

I have no heart to feel the beauty of it ! 
My feet are weary, pacing up and down 
These level flags, and wearier still my 
thoughts 



Treading the broken pavement of the Past 
It is too sad. I will go in and rest, 
And make me ready for to-morrow's jouiv 
ney. 

VITTORIA. 

I will go with you ; for I would not lose 
One hour of your dear presence. 'T is 

enough 
Only to be in the same room with you. 
I need not speak to you, nor hear you 

speak ; 
If I but see you, I am satisfied. 

[They go in. 



MONOLOGUE : THE LAST JUDGMENT 

Michael Angelo's Studio. He is at work on 
the cartoon of the Last Judgment. 

MICHAEL ANGELO. 

Why did the Pope and his ten Cardinals 
Come here to lay this heavy task upon 

me? 
Were not the paintings on the Sisti^e 

ceiling 
Enough for them ? They saw the Hebrew 

leader 
Waiting, and clutching his tempestuous 

beard, 
But heeded not. The bones of Julius 
Shook in their sepulchre. I heard the 

sound ; 
They only heard the sound of their own 

voices. 

Are there no other artists here in Rome 
To do this work, that they must needs seek 

me? 
Fra Bastian, my Fra Bastian, might have 

done it, 
But he is lost to art. The Papal Seals, 
Like leaden weights upon a dead man's 

eyes, 
Press down his lids ; and so the burden 

falls 
On Michael Angelo, Chief Architect 
And Painter of the Apostolic Palace. 
That is the title they cajole me with, 
To make me do their work and leave my 

own ; 
But having once begun, I turn not back. 
Blow, ye bright angels, on your golden 

trumpets 
To the four corners of the earth, and wake 



MICHAEL ANGELO 



541 



The dead to judgment ! Ye recording 

angels, 
Open your books and read ! Ye dead, 

awake ! 
Rise from your graves, drowsy and drugged 

with death, 
As men who suddenly aroused from sleep 
Look round amazed, and know not where 

they are ! 

In happy hours, when the imagination 
Wakes like a wind at midnight, and the 

soul 
Trembles in all its leaves, it is a joy 
To be uplifted on its wings, and listen 
To the prophetic voices in the air 
That call us onward. Then the work we do 
Is a delight, and the obedient hand 
Never grows weary. But how different 

is it 
In the disconsolate, discouraged hours, 
When all the wisdom of the world appears 
As trivial as the gossip of a nurse 
In a sick-room, and all our work seems 

useless. 

W^hat is it guides my hand, what thoughts 

possess me, 
That I have drawn her face among the 

angels, 
Where she will be hereafter ? O sweet 

dreams, 
That through the vacant chambers of my 

heart 
Walk in the silence, as familiar phantoms 
Frequent an ancient house, what will ye 

with me ? 
'T is said that Emperors write their names 

in green 
When under age, but when of age in 

purple. 
So Love, the greatest Emperor of them all, 
Writes his in green at first, but afterwards 
In the imperial purple of our blood. 
First love or last love, — which of these 

two passions 
Is more omnipotent ? Which is more fair, 
The star of morning, or the evening star ? 
The sunrise or the sunset of the heart ? 
The hour when we look forth to the un- 
known, 
And the advancing day consumes the 

shadows, 
Or that when all the landscape of our 

lives 



Lies stretched behind us, and familial 

places 
Gleam in the distance, and sweet memfc 

ries 
Rise like a tender haze, and magnify 
The objects we behold, that soon musv 

vanish ? 

What matters it to me, whose counte- 
nance 
Is like Laocoon's, full of pain ? whose fore- 
head 
Is a ploughed harvest-field, where three- 
score years 
Have sown in sorrow and have reaped in 

anguish ? 
To me, the artisan, to whom all women 
Have been as if they were not, or at most 
A sudden rush of pigeons in the air, 
A flutter of wings, a sound, and then a 

silence ? 
I am too old for love ; I am too old 
To flatter and delude myself with visions 
Of never-ending friendship with fail 

women, 
Imaginations, fantasies, illusions, 
In which the things that cannot be take 

shape, 
And seem to be, and for the moment are. 

Convent bells ring. 
Distant and near and low and loud the 

bells, 
Dominican, Benedictine, and Franciscan, 
Jangle and wrangle in their airy towers, 
Discordant as the brotherhoods themselves 
In their dim cloisters. The descending 

sun 
Seems to caress the city that he loves, 
And crowns it with the aureole of a saint* 
I will go forth and breathe the air awhile. 



SAN SILVESTRO 

A Chapel in the Church of San Silvestro on 
Monte Cavallo. 

Vittoria Colonna, Claudio Tolommei, and 

others. 

VTTTORIA. 

Here let us rest awhile, until the crowd 
Has left the church. I have already sent 
For Michael Angelo to join us here- 



542 



MICHAEL ANGELO 



MESSER CLAUDIO. 

After Fra Bernardino's wise discourse 
On the Pauline Epistles, certainly 
Some words of Michael Angelo on Art 
Were not amiss, to bring us back to earth. 

MICHAEL ANGELO, at the doOT. 

How like a Saint or Goddess she appears ! 
Diana or Madonna, which I know not, 
In attitude and aspect formed to be 
At once the artist's worship and despair ! 

VITTORIA. 

Welcome, Maestro. We were waiting for 
you. 

MICHAEL ANGELO. 

I met your messenger upon the way, 
And hastened hither. 

VITTORIA. 

It is kind of you 
To come to us, who linger here like gossips 
Wasting the afternoon in idle talk. 
These are all friends of mine and friends 
of yours. 

MICHAEL ANGELO. 

If friends of yours, then are they friends of 
mine. 

Pardon me, gentlemen. But when I en- 
tered 

I saw but the Marchesa. 

VITTORIA. 

Take this seat 
Between me and Ser Claudio Tolommei, 
Who still maintains that our Italian tongue 
Should be called Tuscan. But for that 

offence 
We will not quarrel with him. 

MICHAEL ANGELO. 

Eccellenza — 

VITTORIA. 

Ser Claudio has banished Eccellenza 

And all such titles from the Tuscan tongue. 

MESSER CLAUDIO. 

W T is the abuse of them, and not the use, 
I deprecate. 

MICHAEL ANGELO. 

The use or the abuse, 
It matters not. Let them all go together, 



As empty phrases and frivolities, 

And common as gold-lace upon the collar 

Of an obsequious lackey. 

VITTORIA. 

That may be, 
But something of politeness would go with 

them ; 
We should lose something of the stately 

manners 
Of the old school. 

MESSER CLAUDIO. 

Undoubtedly. 

VITTORIA. 

But that 
Is not what occupies my thoughts at 

present, 
Nor why I sent for you, Messer Michele. 
It was to counsel me. His Holiness 
Has granted me permission, long desired, 
To build a convent in this neighborhood, 
Where the old tower is standing, from 

whose top 
Nero looked down upon the burning city. 

MICHAEL ANGELO. 

It is an inspiration ! 

VITTORIA. 

I am doubtful 
How I shall build; how large to make the 

convent, 
And which way fronting. 

MICHAEL ANGELO. 

Ah, to build, to build i 
That is the noblest art of all the arts. 
Painting and sculpture are but images, 
Are merely shadows cast by outward 

things 
On stone or canvas, having in themselves 
No separate existence. Architecture, 
Existing in itself, and not in seeming 
A something it is not, surpasses them 
As substance shadow. Long, long years 

ago, 
Standing one morning near the Baths of 

Titus, 
I saw the statue of Laocoon 
Rise from its grave of centuries, like a 

ghost 
Writhing in pain ; and as it tore away 



MICHAEL ANGELO 



543 



The knotted serpents from its limbs, I 

heard, 
Or seemed to hear, the cry of agony 
From its white, parted lips. And still I 

marvel 
At the three Rhodian artists, by whose 

hands 
This miracle was wrought. Yet he beholds 
Far nobler works who looks upon the ruins 
Of temples in the Forum here in Rome. 
If God should give me power in my old 

age 
To build for Him a temple half as grand 
As those were in their glory, I should 

count 
My age more excellent than youth itself, 
And all that I have hitherto accomplished 
As only vanity. 

vittoria. 
I understand you. 
Art is the gift of God, and must be used 
Unto His glory. That in art is highest 
Which aims at this. When St. Hilarion 

blessed 
The horses of Italicus, they won 
The race at Gaza, for his benediction 
O'erpowered all magic ; and the people 

shouted 
That Christ had conquered Mamas. So 

that art 
Which bears the consecration and the seal 
Of holiness upon it will prevail 
Over all others. Those few words of 

yours 
Inspire me with new confidence to build. 
What think you ? The old walls might 

serve, perhaps, 
Some purpose still. The tower can hold 

the bells. 

MICHAEL ANGELO. 

If strong enough. 

VITTORIA. 

If not, it can be strengthened. 

MICHAEL ANGELO. 

I see no bar nor drawback to this building, 
And on our homeward way, if it shall please 

«r you ' 

We may together view the site. 

VITTORIA. 

I thank you. 
I did not venture to request so much. 



MICHAEL ANGELO. 

Let us now go to the old walls you spak* 

of, 
Vossignoria — 

VITTORIA. 

What, again, Maestro V 

MICHAEL ANGELO. 

Pardon me, Messer Claudio, if once more 
I use the ancient courtesies of speech. 
I am too old to change. 



Ill 



CARDINAL IPPOLITO 

Scene I. — A richly furnished apartment in 
the Palace of Cardinal Ippolito. Night. 

Jacopo Nardi, an old man, alone. 

NARDI. 

I am bewildered. These Numidian slaves, 

In strange attire ; these endless antecham- 
bers ; 

This lighted hall, with all its golden splen- 
dors, 

Pictures, and statues ! Can this be the 
dwelling 

Of a disciple of that lowly Man 

Who had not where to lay his head ? These 
statues 

Are not of Saints ; nor is this a Madonna, 

This lovely face, that with such tender 
eyes 

Looks down upon me from the painted can- 
vas. 

My heart begins to fail me. What cam 
he 

Who lives in boundless luxury at Rome 

Care for the imperilled liberties of Flor* 
ence, 

Her people, her Republic ? Ah, the rich 

Feel not the pangs of banishment. All 
doors 

Are open to them, and all hands extended. 

The poor alone are outcasts ; they who 
risked 

All they possessed for liberty, and lost ; 

And wander through the world without a 
friend, 

Sick, comfortless, distressed, unknown, unr 
cared for. 



au 



MICHAEL ANGELO 



Scene II. — Jacopo Nabdi ; Cardinal Ippo- 
lito, in Spanish cloak and slouched hat. 

IPPOLITO. 

1 pray you pardon me if I have kept you 
Waiting so long alone. 



The Cardinal. 



And you ? 



I wait to see 

IPPOLITO. 

I am the Cardinal ; 



NARDI. 

Jacopo Nardi. 



IPPOLITO. 

You are welcome. 
I was expecting you- Philippo Strozzi 
Had told me of your coming. > 

NARDI. 

'T was his son 
That brought me to your door. 

IPPOLITO. 

Pray you, be seated. 
You seem astonished at the garb I wear, 
But at my time of life, and with my habits, 
The petticoats of a Cardinal would be — 
Troublesome ; I could neither ride nor 

walk, 
Nor do a thousand things, if I were dressed 
Like an old dowager. It were putting 

wine 
Young as the young Astyanax into goblets 
As old as Priam. 

NARDI. 

Oh, your Eminence 
Knows best what you should wear. 

IPPOLITO. 

Dear Messer Nardi, 
You are no stranger to me. I have read 
Your excellent translation of the books 
Of Titus Livius, the historian 
Of Rome, and model of all historians 
That shall come after him. It does you 

honor ; 
But greater honor still the love you bear 
To Florence, our dear country, and whose 

annals 
I hope your hand will write, in happier 

days 
Than we now see. 



Your Eminence will pardon 
The lateness of the hour. 

IPPOLITO. 

The hours I count not 
As a sun-dial ; but am like a clock, 
That tells the time as well by night as day. 
So, no excuse. I know what brings you 

here. 
You come to speak of Florence. 



And her woes, 

IPPOLITO. 

The duke, my cousin, the black Alessandro, 
Whose mother was a Moorish slave, that 

fed 
The sheep upon Lorenzo's farm, still lives 
And reigns. 

NARDI. 

Alas, that such a scourge 
Should fall on such a city ! 

IPPOLITO. 

When he dies, 
The Wild Boar in the gardens of Lorenzo, 
The beast obscene, should be the monument 
Of this bad man. 

NARDI. 

He walks the streets at nigh* 
With revellers, insulting honest men. 
No house is sacred from his lusts. The 

convents 
Are turned by him to brothels, and the 

honor 
Of woman and all ancient pious customs 
Are quite forgotten now. The offices 
Of the Priori and Gonfalonier! 
Have been abolished. All the magistrates 
Are now his creatures. Liberty is dead. 
The very memory of all honest living 
Is wiped away, and even our Tuscan tongue 
Corrupted to a Lombard dialect. 

IPPOLITO. 

And, worst of all, his impious hand has 

broken 
The Martinella, — ■ our great battle bell, 
That, sounding through three centuries, has 

led 
The Florentines to victory, — lest its voice 



MICHAEL ANGELO 



545 



Should waken in their soul some memory 
Of far-off times of glory. 

NARDI. 

What a change 
Ten little years have made ! We all re- 
member 
Those better days, when Niccola Capponi, 
The Gonfaloniere, from the windows 
Of the Old Palace, with the blast of trum- 
pets, 
Proclaimed to the inhabitants that Christ 
Was chosen King of Florence ; and already 
Christ is dethroned, and slain ; and in his 

stead 
Reigns Lucifer ! Alas, alas, for Florence ! 

1PPOLITO. 

Lilies with lilies, said Savonarola ; 
Florence and France ! But I say Florence 

only, 
Or only with the Emperor's hand to help us 
In sweeping out the rubbish. 

NARDI. 

Littlr hope 
Of help is there from him. He has be- 
trothed 
His daughter Margaret to this shameless 

Duke. 
What hope have we from such an Em- 
peror ? 

IPPOLITO. 

Baccio Valori and Philippo Strozzi, 

Once the Duke's friends and intimates, are 

with us, 
And Cardinals Salvati and Ridolfi. 
We shall soon see, then, as Valori says, 
Whether the Duke can best spare honest 

men, 
Or honest men the Duke. 



We have determined 
To send ambassadors to Spain, and lay 
Our griefs before the Emperor, though I 

fear 
More than I hope. 

IPPOLITO. 

The Emperor is busy 
With this new war against the Algerines, 
And has no time to listen to complaints 
From our ambassadors ; nor will I trust 
them. 



But go myself. All is in readiness 
For my departure, and to-morrow morning 
I shall go down to Itri, where I meet 
Dante da Castiglione and some others, 
Republicans and fugitives from Florence. 
And then take ship at Gaeta, and go 
To join the Emperor in his new crusade 
Against the Turk. I shall have time 

enough 
And opportunity to plead our cause. 

KArdi, rising. 
It is an inspiration, and I hail it 
As of good omen. May the power that 

sends it 
Bless our beloved country, and restore 
Its banished citizens. The soul of Florence 
Is now outside its gates. What lies within 
Is but a corpse, corrupted and corrupting. 
Heaven help us all. I will not tarry 

longer, 
For you have need of rest. Good-night. 



IPPOLITO. 



Good-night i 



Scene III. — Cardinal Ippolito ; Fra Se- 
bastiano ; Turkish attendants. 

IPPOLITO. 

Fra Bastiano, how your portly presence 
Contrasts with that of the spare Florentine 
Who has just left me ! 

FRA SEBASTIANO. 

As we passed each other^ 
I saw that he was weeping. 



Poor old man * 



Who is he ? 



FRA SEBASTIANO. 



IPPOLITO. 

Jacopo Nardi. A brave soul \ 
One of the Fuorusciti, and the best 
And noblest of them ail ; but he has made 

me 
Sad with his sadness. As I look on you 
My heart grows lighter. I behold a man 
Who lives in an ideal world, apart 
From all the rude collisions of our life, 
In a calm atmosphere. 

FRA SEBASTIANO. 

Your EmipencP 



546 



MICHAEL ANGELO 



Is surely jesting. If you knew the life 
Of artists as I know it, you might think 
Far otherwise. 

IPPOLITO. 

But wherefore should I jest ? 
The world of art is an ideal world, — 
The world I love, and that I fain would 

live in ; 
So speak to me of artists and of art, 
Of all the painters, sculptors, and musicians 
That now illustrate Rome. 

FRA SEBASTIANO. 

Of the musicians, 
I know but Goudimel, the brave maestro 
And chapel-master of his Holiness, 
Who trains the Papal choir. 



In church, this morning, 
I listened to a mass of Goudimel, 
Divinely chanted. In the Incarnatus, 
In lieu of Latin words, the tenor sang 
With infinite tenderness, in plain Italiau, 
A Neapolitan love-song. 

FRA SEBASTIANO. 

You amaze me. 
Was it a wanton song ? 

IPPOLITO. 

Not a divine one. 
I am not over-scrupulous, as you know, 
In word or deed, yet such a song as that, 
Sung by the tenor of the Papal choir, 
And in a Papal mass, seemed out of place ; 
There 's something wrong in it. 

FRA SEBASTIANO. 

There 's something wrong 
In everything. We cannot make the world 
Go right. 'T is not my business to reform 
The Papal choir. 

IPPOLITO. 

Nor mine, thank Heaven ! 
Then tell me of the artists. 

FRA SEBASTIANO. 

Naming one 
I name them all ; for there is only one : 
His name is Messer Michael Angelo. 
All art and artists of the present day 
Centre in him. 



IPPOLITO. 

You count yourself as nothing 1 

FRA SEBASTIANO. 

Or less than nothing, since I am at best 
Only a portrait-painter ; one who draws 
With greater or less skill, as best he may, 
The features of a face. 

IPPOLITO. 

And you have had 
The honor, nay, the glory, of portraying 
Julia Gonzaga ! Do you count as nothing 
A privilege like that ? See there the por- 
trait 
Rebuking you with its divine expression. 
Are you not penitent ? He whose skilful 

hand 
Painted that lovely picture has not right 
To vilipend the art of portrait-painting. 
But what of Michael Angelo ? 

FRA SEBASTIANO. 

But lately 
Strolling together down the crowded Corso, 
We stopped, well pleased, to see your Em- 
inence 
Pass on an Arab steed, a noble creature, 
Which Michael Angelo, who is a lover 
Of all things beautiful, and especially 
When they are Arab horses, much ad« 

mired, 
And could not praise enough. 

ippolito, to an attendant. 

Hassan, to-morrow, 
When I am gone, but not till I am gone, — 
Be careful about that, — take Barbarossa 
To Messer Michael Angelo the sculptor, 
Who lives there at Macello dei Corvi, 
Near to the Capitol ; and take besides 
Some ten mule-loads of provender, and 

say 
Your master sends them to him as g 

present. 

FRA SEBASTIANO. 

A princely gift. Though Michael Angelo 
Refuses presents from his Holiness, 
Yours he will not refuse. 

IPPOLITO. 

You think him like 
Thymoetes, who received the wooden horse 
Into the walls of Troy. That book of 
Virgil 



MICHAEL ANGELO 



547 



Have I translated in Italian verse, 

And shall, some day, when we have leisure 
for it, 

Be pleased to read you. When I speak of 
Troy 

I am reminded of another town 

And of a lovelier Helen, our dear Coun- 
tess 

Julia Gonzaga. You remember, surely, 

The adventure with the corsair Barbarossa, 

And all that followed ? 

FRA SEBASTIANO. 

A most strange adventure ; 
A tale as marvellous and full of wonder 
As any in Boccaccio or Sacchetti ; 
Almost incredible I 

IPPOLITO. 

Were I a painter 
I should not want a better theme than 

that : 
The lovely lady fleeing through the night 
In wild disorder ; and the brigands' camp 
With the red fire-light on their swarthy 

faces. 
Could you not paint it for me ? 



FRA SEBASTIANO. 



It is not in my line. 



No, not I. 



IPPOLITO. 



Then you shall paint 
The portrait of the corsair, when we bring 

him 
A prisoner chained to Naples ; for I feel 
Something like admiration for a man 
Who dared this strange adventure. 



FRA SEBASTIANO. 



But catch the corsair first. 



I will do it. 



IPPOLITO. 

You may begin 
To-morrow with the sword. Hassan, come 

hither ; 
Bring me the Turkish scimitar that hangs 
Beneath the picture yonder. Now un- 
sheathe it. 
*T is a Damascus blade ; you see the in- 
scription 
In Arabic : La Allah ! ilia Allah! — 
There is no God but God. 



FRA SEBASTIANO. 



How beautiful 
In fashion and in finish ! It is perfect. 
The Arsenal of Venice cannot boast 
A finer sword. 



IPPOLITO. 

You like it ? 

FRA SEBASTIANO. 

You do not mean it. 



It 



is yours, 



IPPOLITO. 

I am not a Spaniard^ 
To say that it is yours and not to mean it. 
I have at Itri a whole armory 
Full of such weapons. When you paint the 

portrait 
Of Barbarossa, it will be of use. 
You have not been rewarded as vou should 

be y 

For painting the Gonzaga. Throw this 

bauble 
Into the scale, and make the balance equal. 
Till then suspend it in your studio ; 
You artists like such trifles. 

FRa SEBASTIANO. 

I will keep it 
In memory of the donor. Many thanks. 

IPPOLITO. 

Fra Bastian, I am growing tired of Rome, 
The old dead city, with the old dead 

people ; 
Priests everywhere, like shadows on a wall, 
And morning, noon, and night the cease- 
less sound 
Of convent bells. I must be gone from 

here ; 
Though Ovid somewhere says that Rome is 

worthy 
To be the dwelling-place of all the Gods, 
I must be gone from here. To-morrow 

morning 
I start for Itri, and go thence by sea 
To join the Emperor, who is making war 
Upon the Algerines ; perhaps to sink 
Some Turkish galleys, and bring back in 

chains 
The famous corsair. Thus would I avenge 
The beautiful Gonzaga. 

FRA SEBASTIANO. 

An achievement 
Worthy of Charlemagne, or of Orlando. 



548 



MICHAEL ANGELO 



Berni and Ariosto both shall add 

A canto to their poems, and describe you 

As Furioso and Innamorato. 

Now I must say good-night. 

EPPOLITO. 

You must not go ; 
First you shall sup m ith me. My seneschal, 
Giovan Andrea dal Borgo a San Se- 

polcro, — 
I like to give the whole sonorous name, 
It sounds so like a verse of the iEneid, — 
Has brought me eels fresh from the Lake 

of Fondi, 
And Lucrine oysters cradled in their 

shells ; 
These, with red Fondi wine, the Csecuban 
That Horace speaks of, under a hundred 

keys 
Kept safe, until the heir of Posthumus 
Shall stain the pavement with it, make a 

feast 
Fit for Lucullus, or Fra Bastian even ; 
So we will go to supper, and be merry. 

FRA SEBASTIANO. 

Beware ! Remember that Bolsena's eels 
And Vernage wine once killed a Pope of 
Rome ! 

IPPOLITO. 

'T was a French Pope ; and then so long 

ago; 
Who knows? — perhaps the story is not 

true. 



IV 



BORGO DELLE VERGINE AT NAPLES 

Boom in the Palace of Julia Gonzaga. Night. 
Julia Gonzaga, Giovanni Valdesso. 



Do not go yet. 

valdesso. 

The night is far advanced ; 
I fear to stay too late, and weary you 
With these discussions. 

JULIA. 

I have much to say. 

I speak to you, Valdesso, with that frank- 
ness 

Which is the greatest privilege of friend- 
ship, — 



Speak as I hardly would to my confes- 

sor, 
Such is my confidence in you. 

valdesso. 

Dear CountesSj 
If loyalty to friendship be a claim 
Upon your confidence, then I may claim it. 



Then sit again, and listen unto things 
That nearer are to me than life itself, 

VALDESSO. 

In all things I am happy to obey you, 
And happiest then when you command me 
most. 



Laying aside all useless rhetoric, 
That is superfluous between us two, 
I come at once unto the point, and say, 
You know my outward life, my rank and 

fortune ; 
Countess of Fondi, Duchess of Trajetto, 
A widow rich and flattered, for whose hand 
In marriage princes ask, and ask it only 
To be rejected. All the world can offer 
Lies at my feet. If I remind you of it 
It is not in the way of idle boasting, 
But only to the better understanding 
Of what comes after. 

VALDESSO. 

God hath given you also 
Beauty and intellect ; and the signal grace 
To lead a spotless life amid temptations 
That others yield to. 

JULIA. 

But the inward life, -- 
That you know not ; 't is known but to my- 
self, 
And is to me a mystery and a pain : 
A soul disquieted and ill at ease, 
A mind perplexed with doubts and apprtf 

hensions, 
A heart dissatisfied with all around me, 
And with myself, so that sometimes 

weep, 
Discouraged and disgusted with the worlti 

VALDESSO. 

Whene'er we cross a river at a ford, 

If we would pass in safety, we must keep 



MICHAEL ANGELO 



54S 



Our eyes fixed steadfast on the shore be- 
yond, 

For if we cast them on the flowing stream, 

The head swims with it ; so if we would 
cross 

The running flood of things here in the 
world, 

Our souls must not look down, but fix their 
sight 

On the firm land beyond. 

JULIA. 

I comprehend you. 
You think I am too worldly ; that my head 
Swims with the giddying whirl of life about 

me. 
Is that your meaning ? 

valdesso. 

Yes ; your meditations 
Are more of this world and its vanities 
Than of the world to come. 



I am confused. 



Between the two 



VALDESSO. 

Yet have I seen you listen 
Enraptured when Fra Bernardino preached 
Of faith and hope and charity. 

JULIA. 

I listen, 
But only as to music without meaning. 
It moves me for the moment, and I think 
How beautiful it is to be a saint, 
As dear Vittoria is ; but I am weak 
And wayward, and I soon fall back again 
To my old ways, so very easily. 
There are too many week-days for one 
Sunday. 

VALDESSO. 

Then take the Sunday with you through 

the week, 
And sweeten with it all the other days. 

JULIA. 

In part I do so ; for to put a stop 

To idle tongues, what men might say of 

me 
If I lived all alone here in my palace, 
And not from a vocation that I feel 
For the monastic life, I now am living 
With Sister Caterina at the convent 
Of Santa Chiara, and I come here only 



On certain days, for my affairs, or visits 

Of ceremony, or to be with friends. 

For I confess, to live among my friends 

Is Paradise to me ; my Purgatory 

Is living among people I dislike. 

And so I pass my life in these two woilds t 

This palace and the convent. 

VALDESSO. 

It was then 
The fear of man, and not the love of God, 
That led you to this step. Why will you 

not 
Renounce the world, and give your heart 

to God, 1 

JULIA, 

If God so commands it, 
Wherefore hath He not made me capable 
Of doing for Him what I wish to do 
As easily as I could offer Him 
This jewel from my hand, this gown 1 

wear, 
Or aught else that is mine ? 

VALDESSO. 

The hindrance lies 
In that original sin, by which all fell. 



Ah me, I cannot bring my troubled mind 
To wish well to that Adam, our first parent, 
Who by his sin lost Paradise for us, 
And brought such ills upon us. 

VALDESSO. 

We ourselves, 
When we commit a sin, lose Paradise, 
As much as he did. Let us think of this, 
And how we may regain it. 

JULIA. 

Teach me, then. 
To harmonize the discord of my life, 
And stop the painful jangle of these wires. 

VALDESSO. 

That is a task impossible, until 

You tune your heart-strings to a higher key 

Than earthly melodies. 

JULIA. 

How shall I do it ? 
Point out to me the way of this perfection, 

i For some unexplained reason, the sentence has been 
left incomplete ; apparently the omission was not more 
than a half line. 



550 



MICHAEL ANGELO 



And I will follow you ; for you have made 
My soul enamored with it, and I cannot 
Rest satisfied until I find it out. 
But lead me privately, so that the world 
Hear not my steps ; I would not give occa- 
sion 
For talk among the people. 

VALDESSO. 

Now at last 
I understand you fully. Then, what need 
Is there for us to beat about the bush ? 
I know what you desire of me. 

JULIA. 

What rudeness ! 
If you already know it, why not tell me ? 

VALDESSO. 

Because I rather wait for you to ask it 
With your own lips. 

JULIA. 

Do me the kindness, then, 
To speak without reserve ; and with all 

frankness, 
If you divine the truth, will I confess it. 



I am content. 



VALDESSO. 



JULIA. 

Then speak. 

VALDESSO. 

You would be free 
From the vexatious thoughts that come and 

go 
Through your imagination, and would have 

me 
Point out some royal road and lady-like 
Which you may walk in, and not wound 

your feet. 
You would attain to the divine perfection, 
And yet not turn your back upon the 

world ; 
You would possess humility within, 
But not reveal it in your outward actions ; 
You would have patience, but without the 

rude 
Occasions that require its exercise ; 
You would despise the world, but in such 

fashion 
The world should not despise you in return ; 
Would clothe the soul with all the Chris- 
tian graces, 
Yet not despoil the body of its gauds ; 



Would feed the soul with spiritual food, 
Yet not deprive the body of its feasts ; 
Would seem angelic in the sight of God, 
Yet not too saint-like in the eyes of men ; 
In short, would lead a holy Christian life 
In such a way that even your nearest friend I 
Would not detect therein one circumstance 
To show a change from what it was before,, 
Have I divined your secret ? 

JULIA. 

You have drawn 
The portrait of my inner self as truly 
As the most skilful painter ever painted 
A human face. 

VALDESSO. 

This warrants me in saying 
You think you can win heaven by compro- 
mise, 
And not by verdict. 

JULIA. 

You have often told me 
That a bad compromise was better even 
Than a good verdict. 

VALDESSO. 

Yes, in suits at law ; 
Not in religion. With the human soul 
There is no compromise. By faith alone 
Can man be justified. 

JULIA. 

Hush, dear Valdesso ; 
That is a heresy. Do not, I pray you, 
Proclaim it from the house-top, but preserve 

it 
As something precious, hidden in your 

heart, 
As I, who half believe and tremble at ifc 

VALDESSO. 

I must proclaim the truth. 

JULIA. 

Enthusiast ! 
Why must you ? You imperil both your» 

self 
And friends by your imprudence. Pray, 

be patient. 
You have occasion now to show that virtue 
Which you lay stress upon. Let us return 
To our lost pathway. Show me by what 

steps 
I shall walk in it. 

[Convent bells are heard. 



MICHAEL ANGELO 



55* 



VALDESSO. 

Hark I the convent bells 

Are ringing ; it is midnight ; I must leave 
you. 

And yet I linger. Pardon me, dear Coun- 
tess, 

Since you to-night have made me your con- 
fessor, 

If I so far may venture, I will warn you 

Upon one point. 

JULIA. 

What is it ? Speak, I pray you, 
For I have no concealments in my conduct ; 
All is as open as the light of day. 
What is it you would warn me of ? 



VALDESSO. 



With Cardinal Ippolito. 



Your friendship 



JULIA. 

What is there 
To cause suspicion or alarm in that, 
More than in friendships that I entertain 
With you and others ? I ne'er sat with 

him 
Alone at night, as I am sitting now 
With you, Valdesso. 

VALDESSO. 

Pardon me ; the portrait 
That Fra Bastiano painted was for him. 
Is that quite prudent ? 



That is the same question 
Vittoria put to me, when I last saw her. 
I make you the same answer. That was 

not 
A pledge of love, but of pure gratitude. 
Recall the adventure of that dreadful night 
When Barbarossa with two thousand Moors 
Landed upon the coast, and in the dark- 
ness 
Attacked my castle. Then, without delay, 
The Cardinal came hurrying down from 

Rome 
To rescue and protect me. Was it wrong 
That in an hour like that I did not weigh 
Too nicely this or that, but granted him 
A boon that pleased him, and that flattered 
me ? 

VALDESSO. 

Only beware lest, in disguise of friendship, 
Another corsair, worse than Barbarossa, 



Steal in and seize the castle, not by storm 
But strategy. And now 1 take my leave. 

JULIA. 

Farewell ; but ere you go, look forth and 

see 
How night hath hushed the clamor and the 

stir 
Of the tumultuous streets. The cloudless 

moon 
Roofs the whole city as with tiles of silver ; 
The dim, mysterious sea in silence sleeps, 
And straight into the air Vesuvius lifts 
His plume of smoke. How beautiful it is I 
[Voices in the street. 

GIOVAN ANDREA. 

Poisoned at Itri. 

ANOTHER VOICE. 

Poisoned ? Who is poisoned ? 

GIOVAN ANDREA. 

The Cardinal Ippolito, my master. 
Call it malaria. It was very sudden. 

[Julia swoons. 



VITTORIA COLONNA 

A room in the Torre Argentina, 

Vittoria Colonna and Julia Gonzaga. 

vittoria. 
Come to my arms and to my heart once 

more ; 
My soul goes out to meet you and embrace 

you, 
For we are of the sisterhood of sorrow. 
I know what you have suffered. 



Let me forget it. 



Name it not. 



VITTORIA. 

I will say no more. 
Let me look at you. What a joy it is 
To see your face, to hear your voice again 1 
You bring with you a breath as of the 

morn, 
A memory of the far-off happy days 
When we were young. When did you 

come from Fondi ? 



55* 



MICHAEL ANGELO 



JULIA. 

I have not been at Fondi since — 

VITTORIA. 

Ah me ! 
You need not speak the word : I under- 
stand you. 

JULIA. 

I came from Naples by the lovely valley, 
The Terra di Lavoro. 

VITTORIA. 

And you find me 
But just returned from a long journey 

northward. 
I have been staying with that noble woman, 
Rene'e of France, the Duchess of Ferrara. 

JULIA. 

Oh, tell me of the Duchess. I have heard 
Flaminio speak her praises with such 

warmth 
That I am eager to hear more of her 
And of her brilliant court. 

VITTORIA. 

You shall hear all. 
But first sit down and listen patiently 
While I confess myself. 



Have you committed ? 



What deadly sin 



VITTORIA. 

Not a sin ; a folly. 
I chid you once at Ischia, when you told 

me 
That brave Fra Bastian was to paint your 

portrait. 

JULIA. 

Well I remember it. 

VITTORIA. 

Then chide me now, 
For 1 confess to something still more 

strange. 
Old as I am, I have at last consented 
To the entreaties and the supplications 
Of Michael Angelo — 



To marry him ? 



VITTORIA. 

I pray you, do not jest with me ! You 

know, 
Or you should know, that never such a 

thought 
Entered my breast. I am already married. 
The Marquis of Pescara is my husband, 
And death has not divorced us. 



JULIA. 

Have I offended you ? 



Pardon m& 



VITTORIA. 

No, but have hurt me. 
Unto my buried lord I give myself, 
Unto my friend the shadow of myself, 
My portrait. It is not from vanity, 
But for the love I bear him. 

JULIA. 

I rejoice 
To hear these words. Oh, this will be a 

portrait 
Worthy of both of you ! [A knock. 

VITTORIA, 

Hark ! he is coming. 

JULIA. 

And shall I go or stay ? 

VITTORIA. 

By all means, stay. 
The drawing will be better for your pres- 
ence ; 
You will enliven me. 

JULIA. 

I shall not speak ; 
The presence of great men doth take frot& 

me 
All power of speech. I only gaze at them 
In silent wonder, as if they were gods, 
Or the inhabitants of some other planet. 
Enter Michael Angelo. 

VITTORIA. 

Come in. 

MICHAEL ANGELO. 

I fear my visit n> ill-timed ; 
I interrupt you. 

VITTORIA. 

No ; this is a friend 
Of yours as well as mine, — the Lady Julis* 
The Duchess of Trajetto. 



MICHAEL ANGELO 



553 



MICHAEL ANGELO to JULIA. 

I salute you. 
'T is long since I have seen your face, my 

lady; 
Pardon me if I say that having seen it, 
One never can forget it. 

JULIA. 

You are kind 
To keep me in your memory. 

MICHAEL ANGELO. 

It is 
The privilege of age to speak with frank- 
ness. 
You will not be offended when I say 
That never was your beauty more divine. 

JULIA. 

When Michael Angelo condescends to flat- 
ter 
Or praise me, I am proud, and not offended. 

VITTORIA. 

Now this is gallantry enough for one ; 
Show me a little. 

MICHAEL ANGELO. 

Ah, my gracious lady, 
You know I have not words to speak your 

praise. 
I think of you in silence. You conceal 
Your manifold perfections from all eyes, 
And make yourself more saint-like day by 

day, 
And day by day men worship you the more. 
But now your hour of martyrdom has come. 
You know why I am here. 

VITTORIA. 

Ah yes, I know it ; 
And meet my fate with fortitude. You 

find me 
Surrounded by the labors of your hands : 
The Woman of Samaria at the Well, 
The Mater Dolorosa, and the Christ 
Upon the Cross, beneath which you have 

written 
Those memorable words of Alighieri, 
" Men have forgotten how much blood it 

costs." 

MICHAEL ANGELO. 

And now I come to add one labor more, 
If you will call that labor which is pleasure, 
And only pleasure. 



VITTORIA. 

How shall I be seated ? 

michael angelo, opening his portfolio. 
Just as you are. The light falls well upon 
you. 

VITTORIA. 

I am ashamed to steal the time from you 
That should be given to the Sistine Chapel* 
How does that work go on ? 

Michael angelo, drawing. 

But tardily, 
Old men work slowly. Brain and hand 

alike 
Are dull and torpid. To die young is best; 
And not to be remembered as old men 
Tottering about in their decrepitude. 

VITTORIA. 

My dear Maestro ! have you, then, forgot- 
ten 
The story of Sophocles in his old age ? 

MICHAEL ANGELO. 

What story is it ? 

VITTORIA. 

When his sons accused him, 
Before the Areopagus, of dotage, 
For all defence, he read there to his Judges 
The Tragedy of CEdipus Coloneus, — 
The work of his old age. 

MICHAEL ANGELO. 

'T is an illusion, 
A fabulous story, that will lead old men 
Into a thousand follies and conceits. 

VITTORIA. 

So you may show to cavillers your painting 
Of the Last Judgment in the Sistinfi 
Chapel. 

MICHAEL ANGELO. 

Now you and Lady Julia shall resume 
The conversation that I interrupted. 

VITTORIA. 

It was of no great import ; nothing more 
Nor less than my late visit to Ferrara, 
And what I saw there in the ducal palace* 
Will it not interrupt you ? 



554 



MICHAEL ANGELO 



MICHAEL ANGELO. 



Not the least. 



VITTORIA. 



Well, first, then, of Duke Ercole : a man 
Cold in his manners, and reserved and si- 
lent, 
And yet magnificent in all his ways ; 
Not hospitable unto new ideas, 
But from state policy, and certain reasons 
Concerning the investiture of the duchy, 
A partisan of Rome, and consequently 
Intolerant of all the new opinions. 

JULIA. 

I should not like the Duke. These silent 

men, 
Who only look and listen, are like wells 
That have no water in them, deep and 

empty. 
How could the daughter of a king of France 
Wed such a duke ? 

MICHAEL ANGELO. 

The men that women marry, 
And why they marry them, will always be 
A marvel and a mystery to the world. 

VITTORIA. 

And then the Duchess, — how shall I de- 
scribe her, 
Or tell the merits of that happy nature 
Which pleases most when least it thinks of 

pleasing ? 
Not beautiful, perhaps, in form and fea- 
ture, 
Yet with an inward beauty, that shines 

through 
Each look and attitude and word and ges- 
ture ; 
A kindly grace of manner and behavior, 
A something in her presence and her ways 
That makes her beautiful beyond the reach 
Of mere external beauty ; and in heart 
So noble and devoted to the truth, 
And so in sympathy with all who strive 
After the higher life. 

JULIA. 

She draws me to her 
As much as her Duke Ercole repels me. 

VITTORIA. 

Then the devout and honorable women 
That grace her court, and make it good to 
be there : 



Francesca Bucyronia, the true-hearted, 
Lavinia della Rovere and the Orsini, 
The Magdalena and the Cherubina, 
And Anne de Partheuai, who sings SQ 

sweetly ; 
All lovely women, full of noble thoughts 
And aspirations after noble things. 

JULIA. 

Boccaccio would have envied you such 
dames. 

VITTORIA. 

No ; his Fiammettas and his Philomenas 
Are fitter company for Ser Giovanni ; 
I fear he hardly would have comprehended 
The women that I speak of. 

MICHAEL ANGELO. 

Yet he wrote 
The story of Griseldis. That is something 
To set down in his favor. 

VITTORIA. 

With these ladies 
Was a young girl, Olympia Morata, 
Daughter of Fulvio, the learned scholar, 
Famous in all the universities : 
A marvellous child, who at the spinning- 
wheel, 
And in the daily round of household cares, 
Hath learned both Greek and Latin ; and 

is now 
A favorite of the Duchess and companion 
Of Princess Anne. This beautiful young 

Sappho 
Sometimes recited to us Grecian odes 
That she had written, with a voice whose 

sadness 
Thrilled and o'ermastered me, and made 

me look 
Into the future time, and ask myself 
What destiny will be hers. 

JULIA. 

A sad one, surely. 
Frost kills the flowers that blossom out of 

season ; 
And these precocious intellects portend 
A life of sorrow or an early death. 

VITTORIA. 

About the court were many learned men ; 
Chilian Sinapius from beyond the Alps, 
I And Celio Curione, and Manzolli, 



MICHAEL ANGELO 



555 



The Duke's physician ; and a pale young 

man, 
Charles d'Espeville of Geneva, whom the 

Duchess 
Doth much delight to talk with and to read. 
For he hath written a book of Institutes 
The Duchess greatly praises, though some 

call it 
The Koran of the heretics. 

JULIA. 

And what poets 
Were there to sing you madrigals, and 

praise 
Olympia's eyes and Cherubina's tresses ? 

VITTORIA. 

None ; for great Ariosto is no more. 
The voice that filled those halls with mel- 
ody 
Has long been hushed in death. 

JULIA. 

You should have made 
A pilgrimage unto the poet's tomb, 
And laid a wreath upon it, for the words 
He spake of you. 

VITTORIA. 

And of yourself no less, 
And of our master, Michael Angelo. 



Of me? 



MICHAEL ANGELO. 



VITTORIA. 



Have you forgotten that he calls you 
Michael, less man than angel, and divine ? 
You are ungrateful. 



MICHAEL ANGELO. 



A mere play on words. 
That adjective he wanted for a rhyme, 
To match with Gian Bellino and Urbino. 



VITTORIA. 

Bernardo Tasso is no longer there, 
Nor the gay troubadour of Gascony, 
Clement Marot, surnamed by flatterers 
The Prince of Poets and the Poet of Princes, 
Who, being looked upon with much dis- 
favor 
By the Duke Ercole, has fled to Venice. 



MICHAEL ANGELO. 

There let him stay with Pietro Aretino, 
The Scourge of Princes, also called Divine. 
The title is so common in our mouths, 
That even the Pifferari of Abruzzi, 
Who play their bag-pipes in the streets ot 

Rome 
At the Epiphany, will bear it soon, 
And will deserve it better than some poets. 

VITTORIA. 

What bee hath stung you ? 

MICHAEL ANGELO. 

One that makes no honey 5 
One that comes buzzing in through every 

window, 
And stabs men with his sting. A bitter 

thought 
Passed through my mind, but it is gone 

again ; 
I spake too hastily. 

JULIA. 

I pray you, show me 
What you have done. 

MICHAEL ANGELO. 

Not yet ; it is not finished. 



PART SECOND 

I 

MONOLOGUE 

A room in Michael Angelo's house. 

MICHAEL ANGELO. 

Fled to Viterbo, the old Papal city 
Where once an Emperor, humbled in his 

pride, 
Held the Pope's stirrup, as his Holiness 
Alighted from his mule ! A fugitive 
From Cardinal CaraftVs hate, who hurls 
His thunders at the house of the Colonna, 
With endless bitterness ! — Among the nunS 
In Santa Caterina's convent hidden', 
Herself in soul a nun ! And now she chides 

me 
For my too frequent letters, that disturb 
Her meditations, and that hinder me 
And keep me from my work ; now gra- 
ciously 



55<5 



MICHAEL ANGELO 



She thanks me for the crucifix I sent her, 
And says that she will keep it : with one 

hand 
Inflicts a wound, and with the other heals it. 

[Reading. 
"Profoundly I believed that God would 

grant you 
A supernatural faith to paint this Christ ; 
I wished for that which now I see fulfilled 
So marvellously, exceeding all my wishes. 
Nor more could be desired, or even so much. 
And greatly I rejoice that you have made 
The angel on the right so beautiful ; 
For the Archangel Michael will place you, 
You, Michael Angelo, on that new day, 
Upon the Lord's right hand ! And waiting 

that, 
How can I better serve you than to pray 
To this sweet Christ for you, and to beseech 

you 
To hold me altogether yours in all things." 

Well, I will write less often, or no more, 
But wait her coming. No one born in 

Rome 
Can live elsewhere ; but he must pine for 

Rome, 
And must return to it. I, who am born 
And bred a Tuscan and a Florentine, 
Feel the attraction, and I linger here 
As if I were a pebble in the pavement 
Trodden by priestly feet. This I endure, 
Because I breathe in Rome an atmosphere 
Heavy with odors of the laurel leaves 
That crowned great heroes of the sword 

and pen, 
In ages past. I feel myself exalted 
To walk the streets in which a Virgil 

walked, 
Or Trajan rode in triumph ; but far more, 
And most of all, because the great Colonna 
Breathes the same air I breathe, and is to 

me 
An inspiration. Now that she is gone, 
Rome is no longer Rome till she return. 
This feeling overmasters me. I know not 
If it be love, this strong desire to be 
Forever in her presence ; but I know 
That I, who was the friend of solitude, 
And ever was best pleased when most alone, 
Now weary grow of my own company. 
For the first time old age seems lonely to 

me. 

[Opening the Divina Commedia. 
I turn for consolation to the leaves 



Of the great master of our Tuscan tongue, 
Whose words, like colored garnet-shirls in 

lava, 
Betray the heat in which they were en- 
gendered. 
A mendicant, he ate the bitter bread 
Of others, but repaid their meagre gifts 
With immortality. In courts of princes 
He was a by-word, and in streets of towns 
Was mocked by children, like the Hebrew 

prophet, 
Himself a prophet. I too know the cry, 
Go up, thou bald head ! from a generation 
That, wanting reverence, wanteth the best 

food 
The soul can feed on. There 's not room 

enough 
For age and youth upon this little planet. 
Age must give way. There was not room 

enough 
Even for this great poet. In his song 
I hear reverberate the gates of Florence, 
Closing upon him, never more to open ; 
But mingled with the sound are melodies 
Celestial from the gates of paradise. 
He came and he is gone. The people 

knew not 
What manner of man was passing by their 

doors, 
Until he passed no more ; but in his vision 
He saw the torments and beatitudes 
Of souls condemned or pardoned, and hath 

left 
Behind him this sublime Apocalypse. 

I strive in vain to draw here on the margir 
The face of Beatrice. It is not hers, 
But the Colonna's. Each hath his ideal, 
The image of some woman excellent, 
That is his guide. No Grecian art, noi 

Roman, 
Hath yet revealed such loveliness as hers. 



II 

VITERBO 
Vittokia CoiiONNA at the convent window* 

VITTORIA. 

Parting with friends is temporary death, 
As all death is. We see no more theis 

faces, 
Nor hear their voices, save in memory. 



MICHAE1 ANGELO 



55? 



But messages of love give us assurance 
That we are uot forgotten. Who shall say- 
That from the world of spirits comes no 

greeting, 
No message of remembrance ? It may be 
The thoughts that visit us, we know not 

whence, 
Sudden as inspiration, are the whispers 
Of disembodied spirits, speaking to us 
As friends, who wait outside a prison wall, 
Through the barred windows speak to those 

within. [A pause, 

As quiet as the lake that lies beneath me, 
As quiet as the tranquil sky above me, 
As quiet as a heart that beats no more, 
This convent seems. Above, below, all 

peace ! 
Silence and solitude, the soul's best friends, 
Are with me here, and the tumultuous 

world 
Makes no more noise than the remotest 

planet. \_A pause. 

gentle spirit, unto the third circle 
Of heaven among the blessed souls as- 
cended, 
Who, living in the faith and dying for it, 
Have gone to their reward, I do not sigh 
For thee as being dead, but for myself 
That I am still alive. Turn those dear eyes, 
Once so benignant to me, upon mine, 
That open to their tears such uncontrolled 
And such continual issue. Still awhile 
Have patience ; I will come to thee at last. 
A few more goings in and out these doors, 
A few more chimings of these convent 

bells, 
A few more prayers, a few more sighs and 

tears, 
And the long agony of this life will end, 
And I shall be with thee. If I am wanting 
To thy well-being, as thou art to mine, 
Have patience ; I will come to thee at last. 
Ye winds that loiter in these cloister 

gardens, 
Or wander far above the city walls, 
Bear unto him this message, that I ever 
Or speak or think of him, or weep for him. 

By unseen hands uplifted in the light 
Of sunset, yonder solitary cloud 
Floats, with its white apparel blown abroad; 
And wafted up to heaven. It fades away, 
And melts into the air. Ah, would that I 
Could thus be wafted unto thee, Francesco, 
A cloud of white, an incorporeal spirit ! 



Ill 



MICHAEL ANGELO AND BENVENUTO 
CELLINI 



Scene I. 



- Michael Angelo, Benvenuto 
Cellini in gay attire. 



BENVENUTO. 



A good day and good year to the divine 
Maestro Michael Angelo, the sculptor \ 

MICHAEL ANGELO. 

Welcome, my Benvenutoo 

BENVENUTO. 

That is what 
My father said, the first time he beheld 
This handsome face. But say farewell, noft 

welcome. 
I come to take my leave. 1 start for 

Florence 
As fast as horse can carry me. I long 
To set once more upon its level flags 
These feet, made sore by your vile Rouan 

pavements. 
Come with me ; you are wanted there in 

Florence. 
The Sacristy is not finished. 

MICHAEL ANGELO. 

Speak not of It ! 
How damp and cold it was S How my 

bones ached 
And my head reeled, when I was working 

there ! 
I am too old. I will stay here in Rome, 
Where all is old and crumbling, like myself, 
To hopeless ruin. All roads lead to Rome. 

BENVENUTO. 

And all lead out of it. 

MICHAEL ANGELO. 

There is a charm, 
A certain something in the atmosphere, 
That all men feel, and no man can de 
scribe. 

BENVENUTO. 

Malaria ? 

MICHAEL ANGELO. 

Yes, malaria of the mind, 
Out of this tomb of the majestic Past ; 
The fever to accomplish some great work 
That will not let us sleep. I must go en 
Until I die. 



558 



MICHAEL ANGELO 



BENVENUTO. 

Do you ne'er think of Florence ? 

MICHAEL ANGELO. 

Yes ; whenever 
£ think of anything beside my work, 
I think of Florence. I remember, too, 
The bitter days I passed among the quar- 
ries 
Of Seravezza and Pietrasanta ; 
Road - building in the marshes ; stupid 

people, 
And cold and rain incessant, and mad 

gusts 
Of mountain wind, like howling Dervishes, 
That spun and whirled the eddying snow 

about them 
As if it were a garment ; aye, vexations 
And troubles of all kinds, that ended only 
In loss of time and money. 

BENVENUTO. 

True, Maestro ; 
But that was not in Florence. You should 

leave 
Such work to others. Sweeter memories 
Cluster about you, in the pleasant city 
Upon the Arno. 

MICHAEL ANGELO. 

In my waking dreams 
I see the marvellous dome of Brunelleschi, 
Ghiberti's gates of bronze, and Giotto's 

tower ; 
And Ghirlandajo's lovely Benci glides 
With folded hands amid my troubled 

thoughts, 
A splendid vision ! Time rides with the old 
At a great pace. As travellers on swift 

steeds 
See the near landscape fly and flow behind 

them, 
While the remoter fields and dim horizons 
Go with them, and seem wheeling round to 

meet them, 
So in old age things near us slip away, 
And distant things go with us Pleasantly 
Come back to me the days when, as a 

youth, 
I walked with Ghirlandajo in the gardens 
Of Medici, and saw the antique statues, 
The forms august of gods and godlike men, 
And the great world of art revealed itself 
£o my young eyes. Then all that man 

hath done 



Seemed possible to me. Alas ! how little 
Of all I dreamed of has my hand achieved ! 

BENVENUTO. 

Nay, let the Night and Morning, let 

Lorenzo 
And Julian in the Sacristy at Florence, 
Prophets and Sibyls in the Sistine Chapel, 
And the Last Judgment answer. Is it 

finished ? 

MICHAEL ANGELO. 

The work is nearly done. But this Last 

Judgment 
Has been the cause of more vexation to me 
Than it will be of honor. Ser Biagio, 
Master of ceremonies at the Papal court, 
A man punctilious and over nice, 
Calls it improper ; says that those nude 

forms, 
Showing their nakedness in such shameless 

fashion, 
Are better suited to a common bagnio, 
Or wayside wine -shop, than a Papal 

Chapel. 
To punish him I painted him as Minos 
And leave him there as master of cere- 
monies 
In the Infernal Regions. What would you 
Have done to such a man ? 

BENVENUTO. 

I would have killed him. 
When any one insults me, if I can 
I kill him, kill him. 

MICHAEL ANGELO. 

Oh, you gentlemen, 
Who dress in silks and velvets, and weas 

swords, 
Are ready with your weapons, and have all 
A taste for homicide. 

BENVENUTO. 

I learned that lesson 
Under Pope Clement at the siege of Rome, 
Some twenty years ago. As I was standing 
Upon the ramparts of the Campo Santo 
With Alessandro Bene, I beheld 
A sea of fog, that covered all the plain, 
And hid from us the foe ; when suddenly, 
A misty figure, like an apparition, 
Rose up above the fog, as if on horseback. 
At this I aimed my arquebus, and fired. 
The figure vanished ; and there rose a cry 



MICHAEL ANGELO 



SbS 



Out of the darkness, long and fierce and 

loud. 
With imprecations in all languages. 
It was the Constable of France, the Bourbon, 
That I had slain. 

MICHAEL ANGELO. 

Rome should be grateful to you. 

BENVENUTO. 

But has not "been ; you shall hear pres- 
ently. 
During the siege I served as bombardier, 
There in St. Angelo. His Holiness 
One day was walking with his Cardinals 
On the round bastion, while I stood above 
Among my falconets. All thought and 

feeling, 
All skill in art and all desire of fame, 
Were swallowed up in the delightful music 
Of that artillery. I saw far off, 
Within the enemy's trenches on the Prati, 
A Spanish cavalier in scarlet cloak ; 
And firing at him with due aim and range, 
I cut the gay Hidalgo in two pieces. 
The eyes are dry that wept for him in 

Spain. 
His Holiness* delighted beyond measure 
With such display of gunnery, and amazed 
To see the man in scarlet cut in two, 
Gave me his benediction, and absolved me 
From all the homicides I had committed 
In service of the Apostolic Church, 
Or should commit thereafter. From that 

day 
I have not held in very high esteem 
The life of man. 

MICHAEL ANGELO. 

And who absolved Pope Clement ? 
Now let us speak of Art. 

BENVENUTO. 

Of what you will. 

MICHAEL ANGELO. 

Say, have you seen our friend Fra Bastian 

lately, 
Since by a turn of fortune he became 
Friar of the Signet ? 

BENVENUTO. 

Faith, a pretty artist 
To pass his days in stamping leaden seals 
On Papal bulls ! 



MICHAEL ANGELO. 

He has grown fat and lazy. 

As if the lead clung to him like a sinker. 

He paints no more since he was sent to 
Fondi 

By Cardinal Ippolito to paint 

The fair Gonzaga. Ah, you should have 
seen him 

As I did, riding through the city gate, 

In his brown hood, attended by four horse- 
men, 

Completely armed, to frighten the banditti. 

I think he would have frightened them 
alone, 

For he was rounder than the O of Giotto. 

BENVENUTO. 

He must have looked more like a sack of 

meal 
Than a great painter. 

MICHAEL ANGELO. 

Well, he is not great, 
But still I like him greatly. Benvenuto, 
Have faith in nothing but in industry. 
Be at it late and early ; persevere, 
And work right on through censure and 

applause, 
Or else abandon Art. 

BENVENUTO. 

No man works harde* 
Than I do. I am not a moment idle. 

MICHAEL ANGELO. 

And what have you to show me ? 

BENVENUTO. 

This gold ring 
Made for his Holiness, — my latest work 9 
And I am proud of it. A single diamond,, 
Presented by the Emperor to the Pope. 
Targhetta of Venice set and tinted it ; 
I have reset it, and retinted it 
Divinely, as you see. The jewellers 
Say I 've surpassed Targhetta. 



MICHAEL ANGELO. 



A pretty jewel. 



Let me see it 



BENVENUTO. 

That is not the expression 
i a verv oretty word 

precious stone, 



That is not the « 
Pretty is not a very pretty word 
To be applied to such a precious 



S6o 



MICHAEL ANGELO 



Given by an Eiuperor to a Pope, and set 
By Benvenuto ! 

MICHAEL ANGELO. 

Messer Benvenuto, 
I lose all patience with you ; for the gifts 
That God hath given you are of such a kind, 
They should be put to far more noble uses 
Than setting diamonds for the Pope of 

Rome. 
You can do greater things. 

BENVENUTO. 

The God who made me 
Knows why he made me what I am, — a 

goldsmith, 
A mere artificer. 

MICHAEL ANGELO. 

Oh no ; an artist, 
Richly endowed by nature, but who wraps 
His talent in a napkin, and consumes 
His life in vanities. 

BENVENUTO. 

Michael Angelo 
May say what Benvenuto would not bear 
From any other man. He speaks the truth. 
I know my life is wasted and consumed 
In vanities ; but I have better hours 
And higher aspirations than you think. 
Once, when a prisoner at St. Angelo, 
Fasting and praying in the midnight dark- 
ness, 
In a celestial vision I beheld 
A crucifix in the sun, of the same sub- 
stance 
As is the sun itself. And since that hour 
There is a splendor round about my head, 
That may be seen at sunrise and at sunset 
Above my shadow on the grass. And now 
I know that I am in the grace of God, 
And none henceforth can harm me. 

f MICHAEL ANGELO. 

None but one, — 
None but yourself, who are your greatest 

foe. 
He that respects himself is safe from 

others ; 
He wears a coat of mail that none can 

pierce. 

BENVENUTO. 

I always wear one. 



MICHAEL ANGELO. 

O incorrigible ! 
At least, forget not the celestial vision. 
Man must have something higher than 

himself 
To think of. 

BENVENUTO. 

That I know full well. Now listen. 
I have been sent for into France, where 

grow 
The Lilies that illumine heaven and earth, 
And carry in mine equipage the model 
Of a most marvellous golden salt-cellar 
For the king's table ; and here in my brain 
A statue of Mars Armipotent for the foun- 
tain 
Of Fontainebleau, colossal, wonderful. 
I go a goldsmith, to return a sculptor. 
And so farewell, great Master. Think of 

me 
As one who, in the midst of all his follies, 
Had also his ambition, and aspired 
To better things. 

MICHAEL ANGELO. 

Do not forget the vision. 

Scene n. — Michael Angelo sitting down 
again to the Divina Com media. 

MICHAEL ANGELO. 

Now in what circle of his poem sacred 
Would the great Florentine have placed 

this man ? 
Whether in Phlegethon, the river of blood, 
Or in the fiery belt of Purgatory, 
I know not, but most surely not with those 
Who walk in leaden cloaks. Though he is 

one 
Whose passions, like a potent alkahest, 
Dissolve his better nature, he is not 
That despicable thing, a hypocrite ; 
He doth not cloak his vices, nor deny then 
Come back, my thoughts, from him to Par 

adise. 



IV 

FRA SEBASTIANO DEL PIOMBO 

Scene I. — Michael Angelo ; Fra Sebas 

TIANO DEL PlOMBO. 

michael angelo, not turning round. 
1 Who is it ? 



MICHAEL ANGELO 



56t 



FRA SEBASTIANO. 

Wait, for I am out of breath 
In climbing your steep stairs. 

MICHAEL ANGELO. 

Ah, my Bastiano, 
If you went up and down as many stairs 
As I do still, and climbed as many ladders, 
It would be better for you. Pray sit down. 
Your idle and luxurious way of living' 
Will one day take your breath away en- 
tirely,' 
And you will never find it. 

FRA SEBASTIANO. 

Well, what then ? 
That would be better, in my apprehension, 
Than falling from a scaffold. 

MICHAEL ANGELO. 

That was nothing. 
It did not kill me ; only lamed me slightly ; 
I am quite well again. 

FRA SEBASTIANO. 

But why, dear Master, 
Why do you live so high up in your house, 
When you could live below and have a gar- 
den, 
As I do? 

MICHAEL ANGELO. 

From this window I can look 
On many gardens ; o'er the city roofs 
See the Campagna and the Alban hills : 
And all are mine. 

FRA SEBASTIANO. 

Can you sit down in them, 
On summer afternoons, and play the lute, 
Or sing, or sleep the time away ? 

MICHAEL ANGELO. 

I never 
Sleep in the day-time ; scarcely sleep at 

night ; 
I have not time. Did you meet Benvenuto 
As you came up the stair ? 

FRA SEBASTIANO. 

He ran against me 
On the first landing, going at full speed ; 
Dressed like the Spanish captain in a play, 
With his long rapier and his short red 
cloak. 



Why hurry through the world at such a, 

pace ? 
Life will not be too long. 

MICHAEL ANGELO. 

It is his nature,- n 
A restless spirit, that consumes itself 
With useless agitations. He o'erleaps 
The goal he aims at. Patience is a plant 
That grows not in all gardens. You are 

made 
Of quite another clay. 

FRA SEBASTIANO. 

And thank God for it. 
And now, being somewhat rested, I will 

tell you 
Why I have climbed these formidable 

stairs. 
I have a friend, Francesco Berni, here, 
A very charming poet and companion, 
Who greatly honors you and all your doings, 
And you must sup with us. 

MICHAEL ANGELO. 

Not I, indeed. 
I know too well what artists' suppers are. 
You must excuse me. 

FRA SEBASTIANO. 

I will not excuse you. 
You need repose from your incessant work ; 
Some recreation, some bright hours of plea- 
sure c 

MICHAEL ANGELO. 

To me, what you and other men call plea- 
sure. 
Is only pain. Work is my recreation, 
The play of faculty ; a delight like that 
Which a bird feels in flying, or a fish 
In darting through the water, — nothing 

more. 
I cannot go. The Sibylline leaves of life 
Grow precious now, when only few remain 
I cannot go. 

FRA SEBASTIANO. 

Berni, perhaps, will read 
A canto of the Orlando Innamorato. 

MICHAEL ANGELO. 

That is another reason for not going. 
If aught is tedious and intolerable, 
It is a poet reading his own verses. 



562 



MICHAEL ANGELO 



FRA SEBASTIANO. 



Berni thinks somewhat better of your verses 
Than you of his. He says that you speak 

things, 
And other poets words. So, pray you, come. 

MICHAEL ANGELO. 

If it were now the Improvisatore, 

Luigi Pulci, whom I used to hear 

With Benvenuto, in the streets of Florence, 

I might be tempted. I was younger then, 

And singing in the open air was pleasant. 

FRA SEBASTIANO. 

There is a Frenchman here, named Rabe- 
lais, 
Once a Franciscan friar, and now a doctor, 
And secretary to the embassy : 
A learned man, who speaks all languages, 
And wittiest of men ; who wrote a book 
Of the Adventures of Gargantua, 
So full of strange conceits one roars with 

laughter 
At every page ; a jovial boon-companion 
And lover of much wine. He too is coming. 

MICHAEL ANGELO. 

Then you will not want me, who am not 
witty, 

And have no sense of mirth, and love not 
wine. 

i should be like a dead man at your 
banquet. 

Why should I seek this Frenchman, Rabe- 
lais ? 

And wherefore go to hear Francesco Berni, 

When I have Dante Alighieri here, 

The greatest of all poets ? 

FRA SEBASTIANO. 

And the dullest ; 
And only to be read in episodes. 
His day is past. Petrarca is our poet. 

MICHAEL ANGELO. 

Petrarca is for women and for lovers, 
And for those soft Abati, who delight 
To wander down long garden walks in 

summer, 
Tinkling their little sonnets all day long, 
As lap-dogs do their bells. 

FRA SEBASTIANO. 

I love Petrarca. 
How sweetly of his absent love he sings, 



When journeying in the forest of Ai* 

dennes ! 
"I seem to hear her, hearing the boughs 

and breezes 
And leaves and birds lamenting, and the 

waters 
Murmuring flee along the verdant herb- 



MICHAEL ANGELO. 

Enough. It is all seeming, and no being. 
If you would know how a man speaks ia 

earnest, 
Read here this passage, where St. Peter 

thunders 
In Paradise against degenerate Popes 
And the corruptions of the church, till all 
The heaven about him blushes like a sunset, 
I beg you to take note of what he says 
About the Papal seals, for that concerns 
Your office and yourself. 

fra sebastiano, reading. 

Is this the passage % 
" Nor I be made the figure of a seal 
To privileges venal and mendacious ; 
Whereat I often redden and flash with 

fire!" — 
That is not poetry. 

MICHAEL ANGELO. 

What is it, tnen ? 

FRA SEBASTIANO. 

Vituperation ; gall that might have spirted 
From Aretino's pen. 

MICHAEL ANGELO. 

Name not that man ! 
A profligate, whom your Francesco Berni 
Describes as having one foot in the brothel 
And the other in the hospital ; who lives 
By flattering or maligning, as best serves 
His purpose at the time. He writes tc 

me 
With easy arrogance of my Last Judgment, 
In such familiar tone that one would say 
The great event already had transpired, 
And he was present, and from observation 
Informed me how the picture should be 

painted. 

FRA SEBASTIANO. 

What unassuming, unobtrusive men 
These critics are ! Now, to have Aretino 



MICHAEL ANGELO 



S* 



Aiming his shafts at you brings back to 

mind 
The Gascon archers in the square of Milan, 
Shooting their arrows at Duke Sforza's 

statue, 
By Leonardo, and the foolish rabble 
Of envious Florentines, that at your David 
Threw stones at night. But Aretino 
praised you. 

MICHAEL ANGELO. 

His praises were ironical. He knows 
How to use words as weapons, and to wound 
While seeming to defend. But look, Bas- 

tiano, 
See how the setting sun lights up that pic- 
ture ! 

FRA SEBASTIANO. 

My portrait of Vittoria Colonna. 

MICHAEL ANGELO. 

It makes her look as she will look here- 
after, 
When she becomes a saint ! 

FRA SEBASTIANO. 

A noble woman ! 

MICHAEL ANGELO. 

Ah, these old hands can fashion fairer 

shapes 
In marble, and can paint diviner pictures, 
Since I have known her. 

FRA SEBASTIANO. 

And you like this picture ; 
And yet it is in oils, which you detest. 

MICHAEL ANGELO. 

When that barbarian Jan Van Eyck dis- 
covered 
The use of oil in painting, he degraded 
His art into a handicraft, and made it 
Sign-painting, merely, for a country inn 
Or wayside wine-shop. 'Tis an art for 

women, 
Or for such leisurely and idle people 
As you are, Fra Bastiano. Nature paints 

not 
In oils, but frescoes the great dome of 

heaven 
With sunsets, and the lovely forms of 

clouds 
And flying vapors. 



FRA SEBASTIANO. 

And how soon they fade ! 
Behold yon line of roofs and belfries 

painted 
Upon the golden background of the sky, 
Like a Byzantine picture, or a portrait 
Of Cimabue. See how hard the outline, 
Sharp-cut and clear, not rounded into 

shadow. 
Yet that is nature. 

MICHAEL ANGELO. 

She is always right. 
The picture that approaches sculpture 

nearest 
Is the best picture. 

FRA SEBASTIANO. 

Leonardo thinks 
The open air too bright. We ought t« 

paint 
As if the sun were shining through a mist. 
'T is easier done in oil than in distemper. 

MICHAEL ANGELO. 

Do not revive again the old dispute ; 

I have an excellent memory for forgetting, 

But I still feel the hurt. Wounds are not 

healed 
By the unbending of the bow that made 

them. 

FRA SEBASTIANO. 

So say Petrarca and the ancient proverb. 

MICHAEL ANGELO. 

But that is past. Now I am angry with 

you, 
Not that you paint in oils, but that, grown 

fat 
And indolent, you do not paint at all. 

FRA SEBASTIANO. 

Why should I paint ? Why should I toil 

and sweat, 
Who now am rich enough to live at ease, 
And take my pleasure ? 

MICHAEL ANGELO. 

When Pope Leo died, 
He who had been so lavish of the wealth 
His predecessors left him, who received 
A basket of gold-pieces every morning, 
Which every night was empty, left behind 
Hardly enough to pay his funeral. 



564 



MICHAEL ANGELO 



FRA SEBASTIANO. 

I care for banquets, not for funerals, 
As did his Holiness. I have forbidden 
All tapers at my burial, and procession 
Of priests and friars and monks ; and have 

provided 
The cost thereof be given to the poor ! 

MICHAEL ANGELO. 

You have done wisely, but of that I speak 

not. 
Ghiberti left behind him wealth and chil- 
dren ; 
But who to-day would know that he had 

lived, 
If he had never made those gates of bronze 
In the old Baptistery, — those gates of 

bronze, 
Worthy to be the gates of Paradise. 
His wealth is scattered to the winds ; his 

children 
Are long since dead ; but those celestial 

gates 
Survive, and keep his name and memory 

green. 

FRA SEBASTIANO. 

But why should I fatigue myself ? I think 
That all things it is possible to paint 
Have been already painted ; and if not, 
Why, there are painters in the world at 

present 
Who can accomplish more in two short 

months 
Than I could in two years ; so it is well 
That some one is contented to do nothing, 
And leave the field to others. 

MICHAEL ANGELO. 

O blasphemer ! 
Not without reason do the people call you 
Sebastian del Piombo, for the lead 
Of all the Papal bulls is heavy upon you, 
And wraps you like a shroud. 

FRA SEBASTIANO. 

Misericordia ! 
Sharp is the vinegar of sweet wine, and 

sharp 
The words you speak, because the heart 

within you 
Is sweet unto the core. 

MICHAEL ANGELO. 

How changed you are 
from the Sebastiano I once knew, 



When poor, laborious, emulous to excel, 
You strove in rivalry with Baldassare 
And Raphael Sanzio. 



FRA SEBASTIANO. 

Raphael is dead \ 
He is but dust and ashes in his grave, 
While I am living and enjoying life, 
And so am victor. One live Pope is worth 
A dozen dead ones. 

MICHAEL ANGEL©. 

Raphael is not dead 5 
He doth but sleep ; for how can he be dead 
Who lives immortal in the hearts of men ? 
He only drank the precious wine of youth, 
The outbreak of the grapes, before the 

vintage 
Was trodden to bitterness by the feet of 

men. 
The gods have given him sleep. We never 

were 
Nor could be foes, although our followers, 
Who are distorted shadows of ourselves, 
Have striven to make us so ; but each one 

worked 
Unconsciously upon the other's thought, 
Both giving and receiving. He perchance 
Caught strength from me, and I some 

greater sweetness 
And tenderness from his more gentle 

nature. 
I have but words of praise and admiration 
For his great genius ; and the world is 

fairer 
That he lived in it. 

FRA SEBASTIANO. 

We at least are friends \ 
So come with me. 

MICHAEL ANGELO. 

No, no ; I am best pleased 
When I ? m not asked to banquets. I have 

reached 
A time of life when daily walks are 

shortened, 
And even the houses of our dearest friends. 
That used to be so near, seem far away. 

FRA SEBASTIANO. 

Then we must sup without you. We shab 

laugh 
At those who toil for fame, and make their 

lives 



MICHAEL ANGELO 



56S 



A tedious martyrdom, that they may live 
A little longer in the mouths of men ! 
And so, good-night. 

MICHAEL ANGELO. 

Good-night, my Fra Bastiano. 



Scene II. —Michael Angelo, returning to his 

work. 

MICHAEL ANGELO. 

How will men speak of me when 1 am 

gone, 
When all this colorless, sad life is ended, 
And I am dust ? They will remember 

only 
The wrinkled forehead, the marred coun- 
tenance, 
The rudeness of my speech, and my rough 

manners, 
And never dream that underneath them all 
There was a woman's heart of tenderness ; 
They will not know the secret of my life, 
Locked up in silence, or but vaguely hinted 
In uncouth rhymes, that may perchance 

survive 
Some little space in memories of men ! 
Each one performs his life-work, and then 

leaves it ; 
Those that come after him will estimate 
His influence on the age in which he lived. 



PALAZZO BELVEDERE 

Titian's studio. A painting of Danae with 
a curtain before it. Titian, Michael An- 
gelo, and Giorgio Vasari. 

MICHAEL ANGELO. 

So you have left at last your still lagoons, 
Your City of Silence floating in the sea, 
And come to us in Rome. 

TITIAN. 

I come to learn, 
But I have come too late. I should have 

seen 
Rome in my youth, when all my mind was 

open 
To new impressions. Our Vasari here 
Leads me about, a blind man, groping 

darkly 



Among the marvels of the past. 

them, 
But do not see them. 



I touch 



MICHAEL ANGELO. 

There are things in Rome 
That one might walk barefooted here from 

Venice 
But to see once, and then to die content. 



I must confess that these majestic ruins 
Oppress me with their gloom. I feel as 

one 
Who in the twilight stumbles among tombs, 
And cannot read the inscriptions carved 

upon them. 

MICHAEL ANGELO. 

I felt so once ; but I have grown familiar 
With desolation, and it has become 
No more a pain to me, but a delight. 



I could not live here. I must have the sea, 
And the sea-mist, with sunshine interwoven 
Like cloth of gold ; must have beneath my 

windows 
The laughter of the waves, and at my door 
Their pattering footsteps,, or I am not 

hajM>„y. 

MICHAEL ANGE^< 

Then tell me of your city in the se^ 
Paved with red basalt of the Paduan hills. 
Tell me of art in Venice. Three great 

names, 
Giorgione, Titian, and the Tintoretto, 
Illustrate your Venetian school, and send 
A challenge to the world. The first is 

dead, 
But Tintoretto lives. 

TITIAN. 

And paints with fire, 
Sudden and splendid, as the lightning 

paints 
The cloudy vault of heaven. 

GIORGIO. 

Does he still keep 
Above his door the arrogant inscription 
That once was painted there, — " The coloi 

of Titian, 
With the design of Michael Angelo " ? 



566 



MICHAEL ANGELO 



TITIAN. 

Indeed, I know not. 'T was a foolish boast, 
And does no harm to any but himself. 
Perhaps he has grown wiser. 

MICHAEL ANGELO. 

When you two 
Are gone, who is there that remains behind 
To seize the pencil falling from your fin- 
gers ? 



Oh, there are many hands upraised already 
To clutch at such a prize, and hardly wait 
For death to loose your grasp, — a hun- 
dred of them : 
Schiavone, Bonifazio, Campagnola, 
Moretto, and Moroni ; who can count them, 
Or measure their ambition ? 

TITIAN. 

When we are gone, 
The generation that comes after us 
Will have far other thoughts than ours. 

Our ruins 
Will serve to build their palaces or tombs. 
They will possess the world that we think 

ours, 
And fashion it far otherwise. 

MICHAEL ANGELO. 

I hear 
Your son Orazio and your nephew Marco 
Mentioned with honor. 

TITIAN. 

Ay, brave lads, brave lads. 
But time will show. There is a youth in 

Venice, 
One Paul Cagliari, called the Veronese, 
Still a mere stripling, but of such rare 

promise 
That we must guard our laurels, or may 

lose them. 

MICHAEL ANGELO. 

These are good tidings ; for I sometimes 

fear 
That, when we die, with us all art will die. 
*T is but a fancy. Nature will provide 
Others to take our places. I rejoice 
To see the young spring forward in the race, 
Eager as we were, and as full of hope 
And the sublime audacity of youth. 



TITIAN. 

Men die and are forgotten. The great 

world 
Goes on the same. Among the myriads 
Of men that live, or have lived, or shall 

live, 
What is a single life, or thine or mine, 
That we should think all nature would 

stand still 
If we were gone ? We must make room 

for others. 

MICHAEL ANGELO. 

And now, Maestro, pray unveil your pictui 
Of Danae, of which I hear such praise. 

Titian, drawing bach the curtain. 
What think you ? 

MICHAEL ANGELO. 

That Acrisius did well 
To lock such beauty in a brazen tower, 
And hide it from all eyes. 



Was beautiful. 



The model truly 



MICHAEL ANGELO. 

And more, that you were present, 
And saw the showery Jove from high Olym- 
pus 
Descend in all his splendor. 

TITIAN. 

From your lips 
Such words are full of sweetness. 

MICHAEL ANGELO. 

You have caught 
These golden hues from your Venetian sun- 
sets. 

TITIAN. 

Possibly. 

MICHAEL ANGELO. 

Or from sunshine through a shower 
On the lagoons, or the broad Adriatic. 
Nature reveals herself in all our arts.^ 
The pavements and the palaces of cities 
Hint at the nature of the neighboring hill* 
Red lavas from the Euganean quarries 
Of Padua pave your streets ; your palaces 
Are the white stones of Istria, and gleam 
Reflected in your waters and your pictureSi 
And thus the works of every artist show 



MICHAEL ANGELO 



567 



Something of his surroundings and his 

habits. 
The uttermost that can be reached by color 
Is here accomplished. Warmth and light 

and softness 
Mingle together. Never yet was flesh 
Painted by hand of artist, dead or living, 
With such divine perfection. 

TITIAN. 

I am grateful 
For so much praise from you, who are a 

master ; 
While mostly those who praise and those 

who blame 
Know nothing of the matter, so that mainly 
Their censure sounds like praise, their 

praise like censure. 

MICHAEL ANGELO. 

Wonderful ! wonderful ! The charm of 

color 
Fascinates me the more that in myself 
The gift is wanting. I am not a painter. 

GIORGIO. 

Messer Michele, all the arts are yours, 
Not one alone ; and therefore I may ven- 
ture 
To put a question to you. 

MICHAEL ANGELO. 

Well, speak on. 

GIORGIO. 

Two nephews of the Cardinal Farnese 
Have made me umpire in dispute between 

them 
Which is the greater of the sister arts, 
Painting or sculpture. Solve for me the 

doubt. 

MICHAEL ANGELO. 

Sculpture and painting have a common 



And whosoever would attain to it, 
Whichever path he take, will find that goal 
Equally hard to reach. 

GIORGIO. 

No doubt, no doubt ; 
But you evade the question. 

MICHAEL ANGELO. 

When I stand 
In presence of this picture, I concede 



That painting has attained its uttermost ; 
But in the presence of my sculptured fig- 
ures 
I feel that my conception soars beyond 
All limit I have reached. 

GIORGIO. 

You still evade me 

MICHAEL ANGELO. 

Giorgio Vasari, I have often said 

That I account that painting as the best 

Which most resembles sculpture. Here 
before us 

We have the proof. Behold these rounded 
limbs ! 

How from the canvas they detach them- 
selves, 

Till they deceive the eye, and one would 
say, 

It is a statue with a screen behind it ! 



Signori, pardon me ; but all such questions 
Seem to me idle. 

MICHAEL ANGELO. 

Idle as the wind. 
And now, Maestro, I will say once more 
How admirable I esteem your work, 
And leave you, without further interrup- 
tion. 

TITIAN. 

Your friendly visit hath much honored me. 



Farewell. 

MICHAEL ANGELO to GIORGIO, going OUt. 

If the Venetian painters kne^f 
But half as much of drawing as of color, 
They would indeed work miracles in art, 
And the world see what it hath never seefiL 



VI 

PALAZZO CESARINI 

Scene I. — Vittoria Colonna, seated in an 
arm-chair; Julia Gonzaga, standing neat 
her. 

JULIA. 

It grieves me that I find you still so weak 
And suffering. 



568 



MICHAEL ANGELO 



VITTORIA. 

No, not suffering ; only dying. 
Death is the chillness that precedes the 

dawn ; 
We shudder for a moment, then awake 
In the broad sunshine of the other life. 
I am a shadow, merely, and these hands, 
These cheeks, these eyes, these tresses that 

my husband 
Once thought so beautiful, and I was proud 

of 
Because he thought them so, are faded 

quite, — 
All beauty gone from them. 

JULIA. 

Ah, no, not that 
Paler you are, but not less beautiful, 

VITTORIA, folding her hands. 
gentle spirit, unto the third circle 
Of heaven among the blessed souls as- 
cended, 
Who living for the faith and dying for it, 
Have gone to their reward, I do not mourn 
For thee as being dead, but for myself 
That I am still alive. A little longer 
Have patience with me, and if I am want- 
ing 
To thy well-being as thou art to mine, 
Have patience ; I will come to thee ere 
long. 



Do not give way to these foreboding 
thoughts. 

VITTORIA. 

Hand me the mirror. I would fain behold 
What change comes o'er our features when 

we die. 
Thank you. And now sit down beside me 

here. 
How glad I am that you have come to-day, 
Above all other days, and at the hour 
When most I need you. 

Julia. 
Do yo» ever need me ? 

VITTORIA. 

Always, and most of all to-day and now. 
Do you remember, Julia, when we walked, 
One afternoon, upon the castle terrace 
At Ischia on the day before you left me ? 






JULIA. 

Well I remember ; but it seems to me 
Something unreal that has never been, 
Something that I have read of in a book, 
Or heard of some one else. 

VITTORIA. 

Ten years and more 
Have passed since then ; and many things 

have happened 
In those ten years, and many friends have 

died : 
Marco Flaminio, whom we all admired 
And loved as our Catullus ; dear Valdesso, 
The noble champion of free thought and 

speech ; 
And Cardinal Ippolito, your friend. 

JULIA. 

Oh, do not speak of him ! His sudden 

death 
O'ercomes me now, as it o'ercame me then. 
Let me forget it ; for my memory 
Serves me too often as an unkind friend, 
And I remember things I would forget, 
While I forget the things I would re- 
member. 

VITTORIA. 

Forgive me ; I will speak of him no more. 
The good Fra Bernardino has departed, 
Has fled from Italy, and crossed the Alps, 
Fearing Caraffa's wrath, because he taught 
That He who made us all without our help 
Could also save us without aid of ours. 
Rende of France, the Duchess of Ferrara, 
That Lily of the Loire, is bowed by winds 
That blow from Rome ; Olympia Morata 
Banished from court because of this new 

doctrine. 
Therefore be cautious. Keep your secret 

thought 
Locked in your breast. 

JULIA. 

I will be very prudent, 
But speak no more, I pray ; it wearies 
you. 

VITTORIA. 

Yes, I am very weary. Read to me. 

JULIA. 

Most willingly. What shall I read ? 



MICHAEL ANGELO 



569 



VITTORIA. 

Petrarca's 
Triumph of Death. The book lies on the 

table, 
Beside the casket there. Read where you 

find 
The leaf turned down. 'T was there I left 

off reading. 

julia reads. 
*'Not as a flame that by some force is 
spent, 
But one that of itself consumeth quite, 
Departed hence in peace the soul con- 
tent, 
In fashion of a soft and lucent light 

Whose nutriment by slow gradation 

goes, 
Keeping until the end its lustre bright. 
Not pale, but whiter than the sheet of 
snows 
That without wind on some fair hill-top 

lies, 
Her weary body seemed to find re- 
pose. 
Like a sweet slumber in her lovely eyes, 
When now the spirit was no longer 

there, 
Was what is dying called by the un- 
wise. 
E'en Death itself in her fair face seemed 
fair." 

Is it of Laura that he here is speaking ? — 
She doth not answer, yet is not asleep ; 
Her eyes are full of light and fixed on 

something 
Above her in the air. I can see naught 
Except the painted angeJ^ on the ceiling. 
Vittoria i speak ! What w it ? Answer 

me ! — 
She only smiles, and stretches out her 

hands. 

[The mirror falls and breaks. 



Call my confessor ! — 

Not disobedient to the heavenly vision ! 

Pescara I my Pescara ! [Dies. 

JULIA. 

Holy Virgin I 
Her body sinks together, — she is dead ! 
[Kneels, and hides her fact in Vittoria' 's lap. 



Scene II. — Julia Gonzaga, Michael An* 
gelo. 

JULIA. 

Hush ! make no noise. 

MICHAEL ANGELO. 

How is she ? 



Never better. 

MICHAEL ANGELO. 

Then she is dead .' 

JULIA. 

Alas ! yes, she is dead \ 
Even death itself in her fair face seems 
fair. 

MICHAEL ANGELO. 

How wonderful ! The light upon her face 
Shines from the windows of another world. 
Saints only have such faces. Holy Angels ! 
Bear her like sainted Catherine to her 
rest 1 [Kisses Vittoria'' s hand. 



PART THIRD 

I 

MONOLOGUE 

Macello dd Corvi. A room in MiCHAEL An- 
gelo's house. 

Michael Angelo, standing before a model o\ 
St. Peter's. 

MICHAEL ANGELO. 

Better than thou I cannot, Brunelleschi, 
And less than thou I will not ! If the 

thought 
Could, like a windlass, lift the ponderous 

stones 
And swing them to their places ; if a 

breath 
Could blow this rounded dome into the 

air, 
As if it were a bubble, and these statues 
Spring at a signal to their sacred stations, 
As sentinels mount guard upon a wall, 
Then were my task completed. Now, 

alas ! 
Naught am I but a Saint Sebaldus, holding 
Upon his hand the model of a church. 



57° 



MICHAEL ANGELO 



As German artists paint him ; and what 
years, 

What weary years, must drag themselves 
along, 

£re this be turned to stone ! What hin- 
drances 

Must block the way ; what idle inter- 
ferences 

Of Cardinals and Canons of St. Peter's, 

Who nothing know of art beyond the color 

Of cloaks and stockings, nor of any build- 
ing 

Save that of their own fortunes ! And what 
then? 

I must then the short-coming of my 
means 

Piece out by stepping forward, as the Spar- 
tan 

Was told to add a step to his short sword. 

\_A pause. 

And is Fra Bastian dead ? Is all that light 

Gone out ? that sunshine darkened ? all 
that music 

And merriment, that used to make our 
lives 

Less melancholy, swallowed up in silence 

Like madrigals sung in the street at night 

By passing revellers? It is strange in- 
deed 

That he should die before me. 'Tis against 

The laws of nature that the young should 
die, 

And the old live ; unless it be that some 

Have long been dead who think themselves 
alive, 

Because not buried. Well, what matters 
it, 

Since now that greater light f that was my 
sun, 

Is set, and all is darkness, all is darkness ! 

Death's lightnings strike to *ight and left 
of me, 

And, like a ruined wall, the world around 
me 

Crumbles away, and I am left alone. 

I have no friends, and wf-nt none. My 

own thoughts 
Are now my sole companions, — thoughts 
of her, 

That like a benediction from the skies 

Come to me in my solitude and soothe me. 
When men are old, the incessant thought 

of Death 
Follows them like their shadow ; sits with 
them 



. . j 

At every meal ; sleeps with them when 

they sleep ; 
And when they wake already is awake, 
And standing by their bedside. Then, what 

. . fo11 ^ 
It is in us to make an enemy 

Of this importunate follower, not a friend 1 

To me a friend, and not an enemy, 

Has he become since all my friends are 

dead. 



II 



VIGNA DI PAPA GIULIO 

Scene I. — Pope Julius HI. seated by the 
Fountain of Acqua Vergine, surrounded by 
Cardinals. 



Tell me, why is it ye are discontent, 
You, Cardinals Salviati and Marcello, 
With Michael Angelo ? What has he 

done, 
Or left undone, that ye are set against 

him? 
When one Pope dies, another is soon made ; 
And I can make a dozen Cardinals, 
But cannot make one Michael Angelo. 

CARDINAL SALVIATI. 

Your Holiness, we are not set against him J 
We but deplore his incapacity. 
He is too old. 

JULIUS. 

You, Cardinal Salviati, 
Are an old man. Are you incapable ? 
'Tis the old ox that draws the straightest 
furrow. 

CARDINAL MARCELLO. 

Your Holiness remembers he was charged 
With the repairs upon St. Mary's bridge ; 
Made cofferdams, and heaped up load on 

load 
Of timber and travertine ; and yet for 

years 
The bridge remained unfinished, till we 

gave it 
To Baccio Bigio. 

JULIUS. 

Always Baccio Bigio t 
Is there no other architect on earth ? 



MICHAEL ANGELO 



571 



Was it not he that sometime had in charge 
The harbor of Ancoua ? 

CARDINAL MARCELLO. 

Ay, the same. 

JULIUS. 

Then let me tell you that your Baccio 

Bigio 
Did greater damage in a single day 
To that fair harbor than the sea had done 
Or would do in ten years. And him you 

think 
To put in place of Michael Angelo, 
In building the Basilica of St. Peter ! 
The ass that thinks himself a stag discovers 
His error when he comes to leap the ditch. 

CARDINAL MAKCBLLO. 

He does not build ; he but demolishes 
The labors of Bramante and San Gallo. 

JULIUS. 

Only to build more grandly. 

CARDINAL MARCELLO. 

But time passes ; 
Year after year goes by, and yet the work 
Is not completed. Michael Angelo 
Is a great sculptor, but no architect. 
His plans are faulty. 

JULIUS. 

I have seen his model, 
And have approved it. But here comes 

the artist. 
Beware of him. He may make Persians 

of you, 
To carry burdens on your backs forever. 

Scene II. — The same: Michael Angelo. 

JULIUS. 

Come forward, dear Maestro. In these 

gardens 
All ceremonies of our court are banished. 
Bit down beside me here. 

michael Angelo, sitting down. 

How graciously 
four Holiness commiserates old age 
And its infirmities ! 

JULIUS. 

Saj' its privileges. 
Art I respect. The building of this palace 



And laying out of these pleasant garden 

walks 
Are my delight, and if I have not asked 
Your aid in this, it is that I forbear 
To lay new burdens on you at an age 
When you need rest. Here I escape 

from Rome 
To be at peace. The tumult of the city 
Scarce reaches here. 

MICHAEL ANGELO. 

How beautiful it is, 
And quiet almost as a hermitage ! 

JULIUS. 

We live as hermits here ; and from these 

heights 
O'erlook all Rome and see the yellow Tiber 
Cleaving in twain the city, like a sword, 
As far below there as St. Mary's bridge. 
What think you of that bridge ? 

MICHAEL ANGELO. 

I would advise 
Your Holiness not to cross it, or not often ; 
It is not safe. 

JULIUS. 

It was repaired of late. 

MICHAEL ANGELO. 

Some morning you will look for it in vain j 
It will be gone. The current of the river 
Is undermining it. 

JULIUS. 

But you repaired it. 

MICHAEL ANGELO. 

I strengthened all its piers, and paved its 

road 
With travertine. He who came after me 
Removed the stone and sold it, and filled in 
The space with gravel. 

JULIUS. 

Cardinal Salviati 
And Cardinal Marcello, do you listen ? 
This is your famous Nanni Baccio Bigio. 

MICHAEL ANGELO, aside. 

There is some mystery here. These Car* 

dinals 
Stand lowering at me with unfriendly eyes 



572 



MICHAEL ANGELO 



JULIUS. 

Now let us come to what concerns us more 

Than bridge or gardens. Some complaints 
are made 

Concerning the Three Chapels in St. Pe- 
ter's ; 

Certain supposed defects or imperfections, 

You doubtless can explain. 

MICHAEL ANGELO. 

This is no longer 
The golden age of art. Men have become 
Iconoclasts and critics. They delight not 
In what an artist does, but set themselves 
To censure what they do not comprehend. 
You will not see them bearing a Madonna 
Of Cimabue to the church in triumph, 
But tearing down the statue of a Pope 
To cast it into cannon. Who are they 
That bring complaints against me ? 

JULIUS. 

Deputies 
Of the Commissioners ; and they complain 
Of insufficient light in the Three Chapels. 

MICHAEL ANGELO. 

Your Holiness, the insufficient light 

Is somewhere else, and not in the Three 

Chapels. 
Who are the deputies that make com- 
plaint ? 

JULIUS. 

The Cardinals Salviati and Marcello, 
Here present. 

michael angelo, rising. 

With permission, Monsignori, 
What is it ye complain of ? 

CARDINAL MARCELLO, 

We regre* 
You have departed from Bramante's plan, 
4nd from San Gallo's. 

MICHAEL ANGELO. 

Since the ancient time 
No greater architect has lived on earth 
Than Lazzari Bramante. His design, 
Without confusion, simple, clear, well- 
lighted, 
Merits all praise, and to depart from it 
Would be departing from the truth. San 
Gallo, 



Building about with columns, took all light 
Out of this plan ; left in the choir dark 

corners 
For infinite ribaldries, and lurking places 
For rogues and robbers ; so that when the 

church 
Was shut at night, not five and twenty 

men 
Sould find them out. It was SaK Gallop 

then, 
That left the church in darkness, and not I 

CARDINAL MARCELLO. 

Excuse me ; but in each of the Three 

Chapels 
Is but a single window. 

MICHAEL ANGELO. 

Monsignore, 
Perhaps you do not know that in the vault* 

ing 
Above there are to go three other windows, 

CARDINAL SALVIATI, 

How should we know ? You never told 
us of it. 

MICHAEL ANGELO. 

I neither am obliged, nor will I be, 
To tell your Eminence or any other 
What I intend or ought to do Your office 
Is to provide the means, and see that 

thieves 
Do not lay hands upon them. The designs 
Must all be left to me. 

CARDINAL MARCELLO. 

Sir architect, 
You do forget yourself, to speak thus 

rudely 
In presence of his Holiness, and to us 
Who are his Cardinals. 

michael angelo, putting on his haU 
I do not forget 
I am descended from the Counts Canossa, 
Linked with the Imperial line, and witf? 

Matilda, 
Who gave the Church Saint Peter's Patri- 
mony. 
I, too, am proud to give unto the Church 
The labor of these hands, and what of life 
Remains to me. My father Buonarotfci 
Was Podesta of Chiusi and Caprese. 
I aro not used to have men speak to m«^ 



MICHAEL ANGELO 



i/d 



As if I were a mason, hired to build 
A garden wall, and paid on Saturdays 
So much an hour. 

CARDINAL, SALVIATI, aside. 

No wonder that Pope Clement 
Never sat down in presence of this man, 
Lest he should do the same ; and always 

bade him 
Put on his hat, lest he unasked should 

doit! 

MICHAEL ANGELO. 

If any one could die of grief and shame, 
I should. This labor was imposed upon 

me ; 
I did not seek it ; and if I assumed it, 
'T was not for love of fame or love of gain, 
But for the love of God. Perhaps old age 
Deceived me, or self-interest, or ambition ; 
I may be dcing harm instead of good. 
Therefore, I pray your Holiness, release 

me ; 
Take off from me the burden of this work ; 
Let me go back to Florence. 



While 1 am living. 



Never, never, 



Upon the fingers of this hand. 
Is at St. Peter's. 



Your placf 



MICHAEL ANGELO. 

Doth your Holiness 
Remember what the Holy Scriptures say 
Of the inevitable time, when those 
Who look out of the windows shall be 

darkened, 
And the almond-tree shall flourish ? 



That is in 
Ecclesiastes. 

MICHAEL ANGELO. 

And the grasshopper 
Shall be a burden, and desire shall fail, 
Because man goeth unto his long home. 
Vanity of Vanities, saith the Preacher ; 

all 
Is vanity. 

JULIUS. 

Ah, were to do a thing 
As easy as to dream of doing it, 
We should not want for artists. But the 

men 
Who carry out in act their great designs 
Ace few in number ; aye, they may be 

counted 



MICHAEL ANGELO. 

I have had my dream, 
And cannot carry out my great conception, 
And put it into act. 

JULIUS. 

Then who can do it 7 
You would but leave it to some Baccic 

Bigio 
To mangle and deface. 

MICHAEL ANGELO. 

Rather than that, 
I will still bear the burden on my shoulders 
A little longer. If your Holiness 
Will keep the world in order, and will leave 
The building of the church to me, the work 
Will go on better for it. Holy Father, 
If all the labors that I have endured, 
And shall endure, advantage not my soul, 
I am but losing time. 

julius, laying his hands on michael angelo S 
shoulders. 

You will be gainer 
Both for your soul and body. 

MICHAEL ANGELO. 

Not events 
Exasperate me, but the funest conclusiors 
I draw from these events ; the sure decline 
Of art, and all the meaning of that word s , 
All that embellishes and sweetens life, 
And lifts it from the level of low care? 
Into the purer atmosphere of beauty ; 
The faith in the Ideal ; the inspiration 
That made the canons of the church of S* 

ville 
Say, " Let us build, so that all men her* 

after 
Will say that we were madmen." Holy 

Father, 
I beg permission to retire from here 

JULIUS. 

Go ; and my benediction be upon you. 
Scene III. — Pope Julius and the Cardinals 



My Cardinals, this Michael Angelo 
Must not be dealt with as a common mason 



574 



MICHAEL ANGELO 



He comes of noble blood, and for his crest 
Bears two bull's horns ; and he has given 

us proof 
Tha.t he can toss with them. From this 

day forth 
Unto the end of time, let no man utter 
The name of Baccio Bigio in my presence. 
All great achievements are the natural 

fruits 
Of a great character. As trees bear not 
Their fruits of the same size and quality, 
But each one in its kind with equal ease, 
So are great deeds as natural to great men 
As mean things are to small ones. By his 

work 
We know the master. Let us not perplex 

him. 

Ill 

BINDO ALTOVITI 

,d street in Rome. Bindo Altoviti, standing 
at the door of his house. Michael Angelo, 
passing. 

BINDO. 

Good-morning, Messer Michael Angelo ! 

MICHAEL ANGELO. 

Good-morning, Messer Bindo Altoviti ! 

BINDO. 

What brings you forth so early ? 

MICHAEL ANGELO. 

The same reason 
That k^eps you standing sentinel at your 

door, — 
The air of this delicious summer morning. 
What news have you from Florence ? 

BINDO. 

Nothing new ; 
The same old tale of violence and wrong. 
Since the disastrous day at Monte Murlo, 
When in procession, through San Gallo's 

gate, 
Bareheaded, clothed in rags, on sorry 

steeds, 
Philippo Strozzi and the good Valori 
Amid the shouts of an ungrateful people 
Were led as prisoners down the streets of 

Florence, 
Hope is no more, and liberty no more. 
Duke Cosimo, the tyrant, reigns supreme. 



MICHAEL ANGELO. 



Florence is dead : her houses are but 

tombs ; 
Silence and solitude are in her streets. 



Ah yes ; and often I repeat the words 
You wrote upon your statue of the Night, 
There in the Sacristy of San Lorenzo : 
" Grateful to me is sleep ; to be of stone 
More grateful, while the wrong and shame 

endure ; 
To see not, feel not, is a benediction ; 
Therefore awake me not ; oh, speak in 

whispers." 

MICHAEL ANGELO. 

Ah, Messer Bindo, the calamities, 
The fallen fortunes, and the desolation 
Of Florence are to me a tragedy 
Deeper than words, and darker than de- 
spair. 
I, who have worshipped freedom from my 

cradle, 
Have loved her with the passion of a lover, 
And clothed her with all lovely attributes 
That the imagination can conceive, 
Or the heart conjure up, now see her dead, 
And trodden in the dust beneath the feet 
Of an adventurer ! It is a grief 
Too great for me to bear in my old age. 



I say no news from Florence : I am wrong, 
For Benvenuto writes that he is coming 
To be my guest in Rome. 

MICHAEL ANGELO. 

Those are good tidings. 
He hath been many years away from us. 



Pray you, come in. 

MICHAEL ANGELO. 

I have not time to stay, 
And yet I will. I see from here your house 
Is filled with works of art. That bust in 

bronze 
Is of yourself- Tell me, who is the inastel 
That works in such an admirable way, 
And with such power and feeling ? 

BINDO. 

Benvenuta 



MICHAEL ANGELO 



57! 



MICHAEL ANGELO. 

Ah ? Benvenuto ? 'T is a masterpiece ! 
It pleases me as much, and even more, 
Than the antiques about it ; and yet they 
Are of the best one sees. But you have 

placed it 
By far too high. The light comes from 

below, 
And injures the expression. Were these 

windows 
Above and not beneath it, then indeed 
It would maintain its own among these 

works 
Of the old masters, noble as they are. 
I will go in and study it more closely. 
I always prophesied that Benvenuto, 
With all his follies and fantastic ways, 
Would show his genius in some work of 

art 
That would amaze the world, and be a 

challenge 
Unto all other artists of his time. 

[They go in. 



IV 



IN THE COLISEUM 

Michael Angelo and Tomaso de* Cava- 
lieri. 

cavalieri. 
What do you here alone, Messer Michele ? 

MICHAEL ANGELO. 

I come to learn. 

CAVALIERIo 

You are already master, 
And teach all other men. 

MICHAEL ANGELO. 

Nay, I know nothing ; 
Not even my own ignorance, as some 
Philosopher hath said. I am a school-boy 
Who hath not learned his lesson, and who 

stands 
Ashamed and silent in the awful presence 
Of the great master of antiquity 
Who built these walls cyclopean. 

CAVALIERI. 

Gaudentiu% 
His name was, I remember. His reward 



Was to be thrown alive to the wild beasts 
Here where we now are standing. 

MICHAEL ANGELO. 

Idle talea 

CAVALIERI. 

But you are greater than Gaudentius was, 
And your work nobler. 

MICHAEL ANGELO. 

Silence, I beseech yo«. 

CAVALIERI. 

Tradition says that fifteen thousand men 
Were toiling for ten years incessantly 
Upon this amphitheatre. 

MICHAEL ANGELO. 

Behold 
How wonderful it is ! The queen of 

flowers, 
The marble rose of Rome ! Its petals torn 
By wind and rain of thrice five hundred 

years ; 
Its mossy sheath half rent away, and sold 
To ornament our palaces and churches, 
Or to be trodden under feet of man 
Upon the Tiber's bank ; yet what remains 
Still opening its fair bosom to the sun, 
And to the constellations that at night 
Hang poised above it like a swarm of bees. 

CAVALIERI. 

The rose of Rome, but not of Paradise ; 
Not the white rose our Tuscan poet saw, 
With saints for petals. When this rose 

was perfect 
Its hundred thousand petals were not 

saints, 
But senators in their Thessalian caps, 
And all the roaring populace of Rome ; 
And even an Empress and the Vestal 

Virgins, 
Who came to see the gladiators die, 
Could not give sweetness to a rose like thiSo 

MICHAEL ANGELO. 

I spake not of its uses, but its beauty. 

CAVALIERI. 

The sand beneath our feet is saturate 
With blood of martyrs ; and these rifted 

stones 
Are awful witnesses against a people 
Wkose pleasure was the pain of dying men 



576 



MICHAEL ANGELO 



MICHAEL ANGELO. 

Tomaso Cavalieri, on my word, 

You should have been a preacher, not a 

painter ! 
Think you that I approve such cruelties, 
Because I marvel at the architects 
Who built these walls, and curved these 

noble arches ? 
Oh, I am put to shame, when I consider 
How mean our work is, when compared 

with theirs ! 
Look at these walls about us and above us ! 
They have been shaken by earthquakes, 

have been made 
A. fortress, and been battered by long 

sieges ; 
The iron clamps, that held the stones 

together, 
jlave been wrenched from them ; but they 

stand erect 
And firm, as if they had been hewn and 

hollowed 
Out of the solid rock, and were a part 
Of the foundations of the world itself. 

CAVALIERI. 

Your work, I say again, is nobler work, 
In so far as its end and aim are nobler ; 
And this is but a ruin, like the rest. 
Its vaulted passages are made the caverns 
Of robbers, and are haunted by the ghosts 
Of murdered men. 

MICHAEL ANGELO. 

A thousand wild flowers bloom 
From every chink, and the birds build their 

nests 
Among the ruined arches, and suggest 
New thoughts of beauty to the architect 
Now let us climb the broken stairs that 

lead 
Into the corridors above, and study 
The marvel and the mystery of that art 
In which I am a pupil, not a master. 

All things must have an end ; the world 

itself 
Must have an end, as in a dream I saw it. 
There came a great hand out of heaven, 

and touched 
The earth, and stopped it in its course. 

The seas 
Leaped, a vast cataract, into the abyss ; 
The forests and the fields slid oif, and 

floated 



Like wooded islands in the air. The dead 
Were hurled forth from their sepulchres ; 

the living 
Were mingled with them, and themselves 

were dead, — 
All being dead ; and the fair, shining 

cities 
Dropped out like jewels from a broken 

crown. 
Naught but the core of the great globe re 

mained, 
A skeleton of stone, And over it 
The wrack of matter drifted like a cloud, 
And then recoiled upon itself, and fell 
Back on the empty world, that with the 

weight 
Reeled, staggered, righted, and then head- 
long plunged 
Into the darkness, as a ship, when struck 
By a great sea, throws off the waves at 

first 
On either side, then settles and goes down 
Into the dark abyss, wiih her dead crew. 

CAVALIERI. 

But the earth does not move. 

MICHAEL ANGELO. 

Who knows ? who knows ? 
There are great truths that pitch their 

1 shining tents 
Outside our walls, and though but diml r 

seen 
In the gray dawn, they will be manifest 
When the light widens into perfect day. 
A certain man, Copernicus by name, 
Sometime professor here in Rome, hag 

whispered 
It is the earth, and not the sun, that moves. 
What I beheld was only in a dream, 
Yet dreams sometimes anticipate events, 
Being unsubstantial images of things 
As yet unseen. 



MACELLO DE' CORVI 
Michael Angelo, Benvenuto Cellini* 

michael angelo. 
So, Benvenuto, you return once more 
To the Eternal City. 'T is the centre 
! To which all gravitates. One finds no rest 



MICHAEL 


ANGELO 577 


Elsewhere than here. There may be other 


And now I know you as no less a sculp- 


cities 


tor." 


That please us for a while, but Rome alone 


Ah, generous Master ! How shall I e'er 


Completely satisfies. It becomes to all 


thank you 


A second native land by predilection, 


For such kind language ? 


And not by accident of birth alone. 






MICHAEL ANGELO. 


BENVENUTO. 


By believing it, 


I am but just arrived, and am now lodging 


I saw the bust at Messer Bindo' s house, 


With Bindo Altoviti. I have been 


And thought it worthy of the ancient mas 


To kiss the feet of our most Holy Father, 


ters, 


And now am come in haste to kiss the 


And said so. That is all. 


hands 




Of my miraculous Master. 


BENVENUTO. 




It is too much ; 


MICHAEL ANGELO. 


And I should stand abashed here in your 


And to find him 


presence, 


Grown very old. 


Had I done nothing worthier of your 

praise 
Than Bindo's bust. 


BENVENUTO. 


You know that precious stones 




Never grow old. 


MICHAEL ANGELO. 




What have you done that 's better ? 


MICHAEL ANGELO. 




Half sunk beneath the horizon, 


BENVENUTO. 


And yet not gone. Twelve years are a 


When I left Rome for Paris, you remem- 


long while. 


ber 


Tell me of France. 


I promised you that if I went a goldsmith 




I would return a sculptor. I have kept 


BENVENUTO. 


The promise I then made. 


It were too long a tale 




To tell you all. Suffice in brief to say 


MICHAEL ANGELO. 


The King received me well, and loved me 


Dear Benvenuto, 


well ; 


I recognized the latent genius in you, 


Gave me the annual pension that before 


But feared your vices. 


me 
Our Leonardo had, nor more nor less, 


BENVENUTO. 


And for my residence the Tour de Nesle, 


I have turned them all 


Upon the river-side. 


To virtues. My impatient, wayward nature, 




That made me quick in quarrel, now has 


MICHAEL ANGELO. 


served me 


A princely lodging. 


Where meekness could not, and where 




patience could not, 


BENVENUTO. 


As you shall hear now. I have cast ir 


What in return I did now matters not, 


bronze 


For there are other things, of greater mo- 


A statue of Perseus, holding thus aloft 


ment, 


In his left hand the head of the Medusa, 


I wish to speak of. First of all, the letter 


And in his right the sword that severed it ; 


You wrote me, not long since, about my 


His right foot planted on the lifeless corse ; 


bust 


His face superb and pitiful, with eyes 


Of Bindo Altoviti, here in Rome. You 


Down-looking on the victim of his ven- 


said, 


geance. 


" My Benvenuto, I for many years 




Have known you as the greatest of all 


MICHAEL ANGELO. 


goldsmiths, 


I see it as it should be. 



578 



MICHAEL ANGELO 



BENVENUTO. 

As it will be 
When it is placed upon the Ducal Square, 
Half-way between your David and the Ju- 
dith 
Of Donatello. 

MICHAEL ANGELO. 

Rival of them both ! 

BENVENUTO. 

But ah, what infinite trouble have I had 
With Bandinello, and that stupid beast, 
The major-domo of Duke Cosimo, 
Francesco Ricci, and their wretched agent 
Gorini, who came crawling round about me 
Like a black spider, with his whining voice 
That sounded like the buzz of a mosquito ! 
Oh, I have wept in utter desperation, 
And wished a thousand times I had not 

left 
My Tour de Nesle, nor e'er returned to 

Florence, 
Nor thought of Perseus,, What malignant 

falsehoods 
They told the Grand Duke, to impede my 

work, 
And make me desperate ! 

MICHAEL ANGELO. 

The nimble lie 
Is like the second-hand upon a clock ; 
We see it fly, while the hour-hand of truth 
Seems to stand still, and yet it moves un- 
seen, 
And wins at last, for the clock will not 

strike 
Till it has reached the goal. 

BENVENUTO. 

My obstinacy 
Stood me in stead, and helped me to o'er- 

come 
The hindrances that envy and ill-will 
Put in my way. 

MICHAEL ANGELO. 

When anything is done 
People see not the patient doing of it, 
Nor think how great would be the loss to 

man 
If it had not been done. As in a building 
Stone rests on stone, and wanting the foun- 
dation 
All would be wanting, so in human life 



Each action rests on the foregone event, 
That made it possible, but is forgotten 
And buried in the earth. 

BENVENUTO. 

Even Bandinello, 
Who never yet spake well of anything, 
Speaks well of this ; and yet he told th© 

Duke 
That, though I cast small figures well 

enough, 
I never could cast this. 

MICHAEL ANGELO. 

But you have done it) 
And proved Ser Bandinello a false prophet. 
That is the wisest way. 

BENVENUTO. 

And ah, that casting ! 
What a wild scene it was, as late at night, 
A night of wind and rain, we heaped the 

furnace 
With pine of Serristori, till the flames 
Caught in the rafters over us, and threat- 
ened 
To send the burning roof upon our heads ; 
And from the garden side the wind and 

rain 
Poured in upon us, and half quenched our 

fires. 
I was beside myself with desperation. 
A shudder came upon me, then a fever ; 
I thought that I was dying, and was forced 
To leave the work-shop, and to throw my- 
self 
Upon my bed, as one who has no hope. 
And as I lay there, a deformed old man 
Appeared before me, and with dismal voice. 
Like one who doth exhort a criminal 
Led forth to death, exclaimed, " Poor Ben- 

venuto, 
Thy work is spoiled ! There is no rem- 
edy ! " 
Then with a cry so loud it might have 

reached 
The heaven of fire, I bounded to my feet, 
And rushed back to my workmen. They 

all stood 
Bewildered and desponding ; and I looked 
Into the furnace, and beheld the mass 
Half molten only, and in my despair 
I fed the fire with oak, whose terrible heat 
Soon made the sluggish metal shine and 
sparkle. 



MICHAEL ANGELO 



579 



Then followed a bright flash, and an explo- 
sion, 

As if a thunderbolt had fallen among us. 

The covering of the furnace had been rent 

Asunder, and the bronze was flowing over ; 

So that I straightway opened all the sluices 

To fill the mould. The metal ran like 
lava, 

Sluggish and heavy ; and I sent my work- 
men 

To ransack the whole house, and bring to- 
gether 

My pewter plates and pans, two hundred 
of them, 

And cast them one by one into the furnace 

To liquefy the mass, and in a moment 

The mould was filled ! I fell upon my 
knees 

And thanked the Lord ; and then we ate 
and drank 

And went to bed, all hearty and contented. 

It was two hours before the break of day. 

My fever was quite gone. 

MICHAEL ANGELO. 

A strange adventure, 
That could have happened to no man alive 
But you, my Benvenuto. 

BENVENUTO. 

As my workmen said 
To major-domo Ricci afterward 
When he inquired of them : " 'T was not 

a man, 
But an express great devil." 

MICHAEL ANGELO. 

And the statue ? 

BENVENUTO. 

Perfect in every part, save the right foot 
Of Perseus, as I had foretold the Duke. 
There was just bronze enough to fill the 

mould ; 
Not a drop over, not a drop too little. 
I looked upon it as a miracle 
Wrought by the hand of God. 

MICHAEL ANGELO. 

And now I see 
How you have turned your vices into vir- 
tues. 

BENVENUTO. 

But wherefore do I prate of this ? I came 
To speak of other things. Duke Cosimo 



Through me invites you to return to Flor- 
ence, 

And offers you great honors, even to make 
you 

One of the Forty-Eight, his Senators. 

MICHAEL ANGELO. 

His Senators ! That is enough. Since 

Florence 
Was changed by Clement Seventh from a 

Republic 
Into a Dukedom, I no longer wish 
To be a Florentine. That dream is ended. 
The Grand Duke Cosimo now reigns su- 
preme ; 
All liberty is dead. Ah, woe is me ! 
I hoped to see my country rise to heights 
Of happiness and freedom yet unreached 
By other nations, but the climbing wave 
Pauses, lets go its hold, and slides again 
Back to the common level, with a hoarse 
Death-rattle in its throat. I am too old 
To hope for better days. I will stay here 
And die in Rome. The very weeds, that 

grow 
Among the broken fragments of her ruins, 
Are sweeter to me than the garden flow* 

ers 
Of other cities ; and the desolate ring 
Of the Campagna round about her walls 
Fairer than all the villas that encircle 
The towns of Tuscany. 

BENVENUTO. 

But your old friends J 

MICHAEL ANGELO. 

All dead by violence. Baccio Valori 
Has been beheaded ; Guiceiardini poisoned > 
Philippo Strozzi strangled in his prison. 
Is Florence then a place for honest men 
To flourish in ? What is there to pre- 
vent 
My sharing the same fate ? 

BENVENUTO. 

Why, this : if all 
Your friends are dead, so are your enemies. 

MICHAEL ANGELO. 

Is Aretino dead ? 

BENVENUTO. 

He lives in Venice, 
And not in Florence. 



580 



MICHAEL ANGELO 



MICHAEL ANGELO. 

'T is the same to me. 
This wretched mountebank, whom flatterers 
Call the Divine, as if to make the word 
Unpleasant in the mouths of those who 

speak it 
And in the ears of those who hear it, sends 

me 
A letter written for the public eye, 
And with st»ch subtle and infernal malice, 
I wonder at his wickedness. 'T is he 
Is the express great devil, and not you. 
Some years ago he told me how to paint 
The scenes of the Last Judgment. 

BENVENUTO. 

I remember. 

MICHAEL ANGELO. 

Well, now he writes to me that, as a Chris- 
tian, 
He is ashamed of the unbounded freedom 
With which I represent it. 

BENVENUTO. 

Hypocrite ! 

MICHAEL ANGELO. 

He says I show mankind that I am want- 
ing 
In piety and religion, in proportion 
As I profess perfection in my art. 
Profess perfection ? Why, 't is only men 
Like Bugiardini who are satisfied 
With what they do. I never am content, 
But always see the labor of my hand 
Fall short of my conception. 

BENVENUTO. 

I perceive 
The malice of this creature. He would 

taint you 
With heresy, and in a time like this ! 
'T is infamous ! 

MICHAEL ANGELO. 

I represent the angels 
Without their heavenly glory, and the 

saints 
Without a trace of earthly modesty. 

BENVENUTO. 

Incredible audacity ! 

MICHAEL ANGELO. 

The heathen 
Veiled their Diana with some drapery, 



And when they represented Venus naked 
They made her by her modest attitude 
Appear half clothed. But I, who am a 

Christian, 
Do so subordinate belief to art 
That I have made the very violation 
Of modesty in martyrs and in virgins 
A spectacle at which all men would gaze 
With half-averted eyes even in. a brothel. 

BENVENUTO. 

He is at home there, and he ought to know 
What men avert their eyes from in such 

places ; 
From the Last Judgment chiefly, I imagine, 

MICHAEL ANGELO. 

But divine Providence will never leave 
The boldness of my marvellous work un- 
punished ; 
And the more marvellous it is, the more 
'T is sure to prove the ruin of my fame ! 
And finally, if in this composition 
I had pursued the instructions that he gave 

me 
Concerning heaven and hell and paradise, 
In that same letter, known to all the 

world, 
Nature would not be forced, as she is now, 
To feel ashamed that she invested me 
With such great talent ; that I stand 

myself 
A very idol in the world of art. 
He taunts me also with the Mausoleum 
Of Julius, still unfinished, for the reason 
That men persuaded the inane old man 
It was of evil augury to build 
His tomb while he was living ; and he 

speaks 
Of heaps of gold this Pope bequeathed to 

me, 
And calls it robbery ; — that is what he 

says. 
What prompted such a letter ? 

BENVENCTO. 

Vanity. 
He is a clever writer, and he likes 
To draw his pen, and flourish it in the face 
Of every honest man, as swordsmen do 
Their rapiers on occasion, but to show 
How skilfully they do it. Had you fol- 
lowed 
The advice he gave, or even thanked hiF* 
for it, 



MICHAEL ANGELO 



581 



You would have seen another style of 

fence 
'T is but his wounded vanity, and the wish 
To see his name in print. So give it not 
A moment's thought ; it will soon be for- 
gotten 

MICHAEL ANGELO. 

I will not think of it, but let it pass 

For a rude speech thrown at me in the 

street, 
As boys threw stones at Dante. 

BENVENUTO. 

And what answer 
Shall I take back to Grand Duke Cosimo ? 
He does not ask your labor or your service ; 
Only your presence in the city of Florence, 
With such advice upon his work in hand 
As he may ask, and you may choose to 
give. 

MICHAEL ANGELO. 

You have my answer. Nothing he can 

offer 
Shall tempt me to leave Rome. My work 

is here, 
And only here, the building of St. Peter's. 
What other things I hitherto have done 
Have fallen from me, are no longer mine ; 
I have passed on beyond them, and have 

left them 
As milestones on the way. What lies be- 
fore me, 
That is still mine, and while it is unfinished 
No one shall draw me from it, or persuade 

me, 
By promises of ease, or wealth, or honor, 
Till I behold the finished dome uprise 
Complete, as now I see it in my thought. 

BENVENUTO. 

And will you paint no more ? 

MICHAEL ANGELO. 

No more. 

BENVENUTO. 

'T is well. 
Sculpture is more divine, and more like 

Nature, 
That fashions all her works in high relief, 
And that is sculpture. This vast ball, the 

Earth, 
Was moulded out of clay, and baked in 

fire ; 
Men, women, and all animals that breathe 



Are statues and not paintings. Even the 

plants, 
The flowers, the fruits, the grasses, were 

first sculptured, 
And colored later. Painting is a lie, 
A shadow merely. 

MICHAEL ANGELO. 

Truly, as you say, 
Sculpture is more than painting. It is 

greater 
To raise the dead to life than to create 
Phantoms that seem to live. The most 

majestic 
Of the three sister arts is that which builds ; 
The eldest of them all, to whom the others 
Are but the handmaids and the servitors, 
Being but imitation, not creation. 
Henceforth I dedicate myself to her. 

BENVENUTO. 

And no more from the marble hew those 

forms 
That fill us all with wonder ? 

MICHAEL ANGELO. 

Many statues 
Will there be room for in my work. Their 

station 
Already is assigned them in my mind. 
But things move slowly. There are hin- 
drances, 
Want of material, want of means, delays 
And interruptions, endless interference 
Of Cardinal Commissioners, and disputes 
And jealousies of artists, that annoy me. 
But I will persevere until the work 
Is wholly finished, or till I sink down 
Surprised by Death, that unexpected guest; 
Who waits for no man's leisure, but steps in f 
Unasked and unannounced, to put a stop 
To all our occupations and designs. 
And then perhaps I may go back to Flor- 
ence ; 
This is my answer to Duke Cosimo. 



VI 
MICHAEL ANGELO's STUDIO 
Michael Angelo and Urbino. 

Michael angelo, pausing in his work, 
Urbino, thou and I are both old men 
My strength begins to fail me. 



&2 



MICHAEL ANGELO 



URBINO. 

Eccellenza, 
That is impossible. Do I not see you 
Attack the marble blocks with the same 

fury 
As twenty years ago ? 

MICHAEL ANGELO. 

'T is an old habit. 
I must have learned it early from my nurse 
At Setignano, the stone-mason's wife ; 
For the first sounds I heard were of the 

chisel 
Chipping away the stone. 

URBINO. 

At every stroke 
You strike fire with your chisel. 



MICHAEL ANGELO. 



The marble is too hard. 



Aye, because 



URBINO. 



It is a block 
That Topolino sent you from Carrara. 
He is a judge of marble. 

MICHAEL ANGELO. 

I remember. 
With it he sent me something of his mak- 
ing, — 
A Mercury, with long body and short legs, 
As if by any possibility 
A messenger of the gods could have short 

legs. 
It was no more like Mercury than you 

are, 
But rather like those little plaster figures 
That peddlers hawk about the villages 
As images of saints. But luckily 
For Topolino, there are many people 
Who see no difference between what is 

best 
And what is only good, or not even good ; 
So that poor artists stand in their esteem 
On the same level with the best, or higher. 



How Eccellenza laughed ! 

MICHAEL ANGELO. 

Poor Topolino ! 
All men are not born artists, nor will labor 
E'er make them artists. 



No, no more 
Than Emperors, or Popes, or Cardinals. 
One must be chosen for it. I have been 
Your color-grinder six and twenty years, 
And am not yet an artist. 



MICHAEL ANGELO. 

Some have eyes 
That see not ; but in every block of mar- 
ble 
I see a statue, — see it as distinctly 
As if it stood before me shaped and per* 

feet 
In attitude and action. I have only 
To hew away the stone walls that imprison 
The lovely apparition, and reveal it 
To other eyes as mine already see it. 
But I grow old and weak. What wilt thon 

do 
When I am dead, Urbino V 

URBINO. 

Eccellenza, 
I must then serve another master. 

MICHAEL ANGELO. 

Never f 
Bitter is servitude at best. Already 
So many years hast thou been serving me ; 
But rather as a friend than as a servant. 
We have grown old together. Dost thou 

think 
So meanly of this Michael Angelo 
As to imagine he would let thee serve, 
When he is free from service ? Take this 

purse, 
Two thousand crowns in gold, 

URBINO. 

Two thousand crowns * 

MICHAEL ANGELO. 

Ay, it will make thee rich. Thou shalt not 

die 
A beggar in a hospital. 

URBINO. 

Oh, Master t 

MICHAEL ANGELOc 

I cannot have them with me on the jour- 
ney 
That I am undertaking. The last garment 
That men will make for me will have no 
pockets. 






MICHAEL ANGELO 



5»3 



Prbino, kissing the hand of michael angelo. 
My generous master ! 

MICHAEL ANGELO. 

Hush! 



My Providence i 

MICHAEL. ANGELO. 

Not a word more. Go now to bed, old 
man. 

Thou hast served Michael Angelo. Re- 
member, 

Henceforward thou shalt serve no other 
master. 



VII 

THE OAKS OF MONTE LUCA 
Michael Angelo, alone in the woods. 

MICHAEL ANGELO. 

How still it is among these ancient oaks ! 

Surges and undulations of the air 

Uplift the leafy boughs, and let them fall 

With scarce a sound. Such sylvan quie- 
tudes 

Become old age. These huge centennial 
oaks, 

That may have heard in infancy the trum- 
pets 

Of Barbarossa's cavalry, deride 

Man's brief existence, that with all his 
strength 

He cannot stretch beyond the hundredth 
year. 

This little acorn, turbaned like the Turk, 

Which with my foot I spurn, may be an 
oak 

Hereafter, feeding with its bitter mast 

The fierce wild-boar, and tossing in its 
arms 

The cradled nests of birds, when all the 
men 

That now inhabit this vast universe, 

They and their children, and their chil- 
dren's children, 

Shall be but dust and mould, and nothing 
more. 

Through openings in the trees I see below 
me 

The valley of Clitumnus, with its farms 



And snow-white oxen grazing in the shade 
Of the tall poplars on the river's brink. 
O Nature, gentle mother, tender nurse ! 
I, who have never loved thee as I ought, 
But wasted all my years immured in cities, 
And breathed the stifling atmosphere of 

streets, 
Now come to thee for refuge. Here is peace 
Yonder I see the little hermitages 
Dotting the mountain side with points of 

light, 
And here St. Julian's convent, like a nest 
Of curlews, clinging to some windy cliff. 
Beyond the broad, illimitable plain 
Down sinks the sun, red as Apollo's quoit, 
That, by the envious Zephyr blown aside, 
Struck Hyacinthus dead, and stained the 

earth 
With his young blood, that blossomed into 

flowers. 
And now, instead of these fair deities, 
Dread demons haunt the earth ; hermits 

inhabit 
The leafy homes of sylvan Hamadryads ; 
And jovial friars, rotund and rubicund, 
Replace the old Silenus with his ass. 

Here underneath these venerable oaks, 
Wrinkled and brown and gnarled like them 

with age, 
A brother of the monastery sits, 
Lost in his meditations. What may be 
The questions that perplex, the hopes that 

cheer him ? — 
Good-evening, holy father. 



God be with you, 

MICHAEL ANGELO. 

Pardon a stranger if he interrupt 
Your meditations. 

MONK. 

It was but a dream. — « 
The old, old dream, that never will come 

true ; 
The dream that all my life I have been 

dreaming, 
And yet is still a dream. 

MICHAEL ANGELO. 

All men have dreams, 
I have had mine ; but none of them came 
true ; 



584 



MICHAEL ANGELO 



They were but vanity. Sometimes I think 
The happiness of man lies in pursuing, 
Not in possessing ; for the things possessed 
Lose half their value. Tell me of your 
dream. 



The yearning of my heart, my sole desire, 

That like the sheaf of Joseph stands up- 
right, 

While all the others bend and bow to it ; 

The passion that torments me, and that 
breathes 

New meaning into the dead forms of 
prayer, 

Is that with mortal eyes I may behold 

The Eternal City. 

MICHAEL ANGELO. 

Rome? 

MONK, 

There is but one ; 
The rest are merely names. I think of it 
As the Celestial City, paved with gold, 
And sentinelled with angels. 

MICHAEL ANGELO. 

Would it were, 
I have just fled from it. It is beleaguered 
By Spanish troops, led by the Duke of Alva. 

MONK. 

But still for me 't is the Celestial City, 
And I would see it once before I die* 

MICHAEL ANGELO. 

Each one must bear his cross. 

MONK. 

Were it a cross 
That had been laid upon me, I could bear 

it, 
Or fall with it. It is a crucifix ; 
I am nailed hand and foot, and I am dying ! 

MICHAEL ANGELO. 

What would you see in Rome ? 

MONK. 

His Holiness. 

MICHAEL ANGELO. 

Him that was once the Cardinal Caraffa ? 
You would but see a man of fourscore 

years, 
With sunken eyes, burning like carbuncles, 



Who sits at table with his friends for hours, 
Cursing the Spaniards as a race of Jews 
And miscreant Moors. And with what 

soldiery 
Think you he now defends the Eternal 

City? 

MONK. 

With legions of bright angels. 

MICHAEL ANGELO. 

So he calls them % 
And yet in fact these bright angelic legion.*? 
Are only German Lutherans. 

monk, crossing himself. 

Heaven protect us I 

MICHAEL ANGELO. 

What further would you see ? 



The Cardinals, 
Going in their gilt coaches to High Mass. 

MICHAEL ANGELO. 

Men do not go to Paradise in coaches. 



The catacombs, the convents, and the 

churches ; 
The ceremonies of the Holy Week 
In all their pomp, or, at the Epiphany, 
The feast of the Santissimo Bambino 
At Ara Coeli. But I shall not see them. 

MICHAEL ANGELO. 

These pompous ceremonies of the Church 
Are but an empty show to him who knows 
The actors in them. Stay here in your 

convent, 
For he who goes to Rome may see to* 

much. 
What would you further ? 

MONK. 

I would see the painting 
Of the Last Judgment in the Sistine ChapeL 

MICHAEL ANGELO. 

The smoke of incense and of altar candles 
Has blackened it already. 

MONK. 

Woe is me ! 

Then I would hear Allegri's Miserere- 
Sung by the Papal choir. 



MICHAEL ANGELO 



585 



MICHAEL ANGELO. 

A dismal dirge ! 
I am an old, old man, and I have lived 
In Rome for thirty years and more, and 

know 
The jarring of the wheels of that great 

world, 
Its jealousies, its discords, and its strife. 
Therefore I say to you, remain content 
Here in your convent, here among your 

woods, 
Where only there is peace. Go not to 

Rome. 
There was of old a monk of Wittenberg 
Who went to Rome ; you may have heard 

of him ; 
His name was Luther ; and you know 

what followed. 

[ The convent bed rings. 

monk, rising. 
It is the convent bell ; it rings for vespers. 
Let us go in ; we both will pray for peace. 



VIII 

THE DEAD CHRIST 

Michael Angelo's Studio. Michael An- 
gelo with a light, working upon the Dead 
Christ. Midnight. 

MICHAEL ANGELO. 

Death, why is it I cannot portray 

Thy form and features ? Do I stand too 

near thee ? 
Or dost thou hold my hand, and draw me 

back, 
As being thy disciple, not thy master ? 
Let him who knows not what old ag-e is 

like 
Have patience till it comes, and he will 

know. 

1 once had skill to fashion Life and Death 
And Sleep, which is the counterfeit of 

Death ; 
And I remember what Giovanni Strozzi 
Wrote underneath my statue of the Night 
fn San Lorenzo, ah, so long ago ! 
Grateful to me is sleep ! More grateful 

now 
Than it was then ; for all my friends are 

dead ; 
A.nd she is dead, the noblest of them all. 



a. saw her face, when the greac sculptoi 

Death, 
Whom men should call Divine, had at a 

blow 
Stricken her into marble ; and I kissed 
Her cold white hand. What was it held 

me back 
From kissing her fair forehead, and those 

lips, 
Those dead, dumb lips ? Grateful to me 

is sleep ! 

Enter Giorgio Vasari. 

GIORGIO. 

Good-evening, or good-morning, for I know 

not 
Which of the two it is. 

MICHAEL ANGELOo 

How came you in ? 

GIORGIO. 

Why, by the door, as all men do. 



Ascanio 



MICHAEL ANGELO. 

Must have forgotten to bolt it. 

GIORGIO. 

Probably. 
Am I a spirit, or so like a spirit, 
That I could slip through bolted door or 

window ? 
As I was passing down the street, I saw 
A glimmer of light, and heard the well~ 

known chink 
Of chisel upon marble. So I entered, 
To see what keeps you from your bed so 

late. 

michael angelo, coming forward with the 
lamp. 

You have been revelling with your boon 

companions, 
Giorgio Vasari, and you come to me 
At an untimely hour. 

GIORGIO. 

The Pope hath sent me, 
His Holiness desires to see again 
The drawing you once showed him of tLv 

dome 
Of the Basilica. 

MICHAEL ANGELO. 

We will look for it 



586 



MICHAEL ANGELO 



GIORGIO. 

What is the marble group that glimmers 

there 
Behind you ? 

MICHAEL ANGELO. 

Nothing, and yet everything, — 
As one may take it. It is my own tomb 
That I am building. 

GIORGIO. 

Do not hide it from me. 
By our long friendship and the love I bear 

you, 
Refuse me not ! 



michael angelo, letting fall the lamp. 

Life hath become to me 
An empty theatre, — its lights extinguished, 
The music silent, and the actors gone ; 
And I alone sit musing on the scenes 
That once have been. I am so old that 

Death 
Oft plucks me by the cloak, to come with 

him ; 
And some day, like this lamp, shall I fall 

down, 
And my last spark of life will be ex* 

tinguished. 
Ah me ! ah me ! what darkness of despair 
So near to death, and yet so far from God. 



TRANSLATIONS 



PRELUDE 

As treasures that men seek, 
Deep buried in sea-sands, 

Vanish if they but speak, 

And elude their eager hands, ■ 

So ye escape and slip, 

songs, and fade away, 

When the word is on my lip 
To interpret what ye say. 

Were it not better, then, 
To let the treasures rest 

Hid from the eyes of men 
Locked in their iron chest ? 

I have but marked the place, 
But half the secret told, 

That, following this slight trace, 
Others may find the gold. 



FROM THE SPANISH 

COPLAS BE MANRIQUE 

Oh let the soul her slumbers break, 
Let thought be quickened, and awake; 
Awake to see 

How soon this life is past and gone, 
And death conies softly stealing on, 
How silently ! 

Swiftly our pleasures glide away, 
Our hearts recall the distant day 
With many sighs; 

The moments that are speeding fast 
We heed not, but the pas<v, — the past, 
More highly prize. 

Onward its course the present keeps, 
Onward the constant current sweeps, 
Till life is done; 

And, did we judge of time aright, 
The past and future in their flight 
Would be as one. 

Let no one fondly dream again, 
That Hope and all her shadowy train 
Will not decay; 

Fleeting as were the dreams of old, 
Remembered like a tale that 's told, 
They pass away. 



Our lives are rivers, gliding free 
To that unfathomed, boundless sea, 
The silent grave ! 

Thither all earthly pomp and boast 
Roll, to be swallowed up and lost 
In one dark wave. 

Thither the mighty torrents stray, 
Thither the brook pursues its way, 
And tinkling rill. 
There all are equal; side by side 
The poor man and the son of pride 
Lie calm and still. 

I will not here invoke the throng 

Of orators and sons of song, 

The deathless few; 

Fiction entices and deceives, 

And, sprinkled o'er her fragrant leaves, 

Lies poisonous dew. 

To One alone my thoughts arise, 

The Eternal Truth, the Good and Wise, 

To Him I cry, 

Who shared on earth our common lot, 

But the world comprehended not 

His deity. 

This world is but the rugged road 
Which leads us to the bright abode 
Of peace above; 

So let us choose that narrow way, 
Which leads no traveller's foot astray 
From realms of love. 

Our cradle is the starting-place, 
Life is the running of the race, 
We reach the goal 
When, in the mansions of the blest, 
Death leaves to its eternal rest 
The weary soul. 

Did we but use it as we ought, 

This world would school each wandering 

thought 
To its high state. 

Faith wings the soul beyond the sky, 
Up to that better world on high, 
For which we wait. 

Yes, the glad messenger of love, 
To guide us to our home above, 
The Saviour came; 



588 



TRANSLATIONS 



Born amid mortal cares and fears, 
He suffered in this vale of tears 
A death of shame. 

Behold of what delusive worth 
The bubbles we pursue on earth, 
The shapes we chase 
Amid a world of treachery ! 
They vanish ere death shuts the eye, 
And leave no trace. 

Time steals them from us, chances strange, 

Disastrous accident, and change, 

That come to all ; 

Even in the most exalted state, 

Relentless sweeps the stroke of fate ; 

The strongest fall. 

Tell me, the charms that lovers seek 
In the clear eye and blushing cheek, 
The hues that play 
O'er rosy lip and brow of snow, 
When hoary age approaches slow, 
Ah; where are they ? 

The cunning skill, the curious arts, 

The glorious strength that youth imparts 

In life's first stage ; 

These shall become a heavy weight, 

When Time swings wide his outward gate 

To weary age. 

The noble blood of Gothic name, 
Heroes emblazoned high to fame, 
In long array ; 

How, in the onward course of time, 
The landmarks of that race sublime 
Were swept away ! 

Some, the degraded slaves of lust, 
Prostrate and trampled in the dust, 
Shall rise no more ; 
Others, by guilt and crime, maintain 
The scutcheon, that, without a stain, 
Their fathers bore. 

Wealth and the high estate of pride, 

With what untimely speed they glide, 

How soon depart ! 

Bid not the shadowy phantoms stay, 

The vassals of a mistress they, 

Of fickle heart. 

These gifts in Fortune's hands are found; 
Her swift revolving wheel turns round, 
A.nd they are gone ! 



No rest the inconstant goddess knows, 
But changing, and without repose, 
Still hurries on. 

Even could the hand of avarice save 
Its gilded baubles, till the grave 
Reclaimed its prey, 
Let none on such poor hopes rely 5 
Life, like an empty dream, flits by, 
And where are they ? 

Earthly desires and sensual lust 
Are passions springing from the dust, 
They fade and die ; 
But, in the life beyond the tomb, 
They seal the immortal spirit's doom 
Eternally ! 

The pleasures and delights, which mask 
In treacherous smiles life's serious task, 
What are they all 
But the fleet coursers of the chase, 
And death an ambush in the race, 
Wherein we fall ? 

No foe, no dangerous pass, we heed, 
Brook no delay, but onward speed 
With loosened rein ; 
And, when the fatal snare is near, 
We strive to check our mad career, 
But strive in vain. 

Could we new charms to age impart, 
And fashion with a cunning art 
The human face, 

As we can clothe the soul with light s 
And make the glorious spirit bright 
With heavenly grace, 

How busily each passing hour 
Should we exert that magic power I 
What ardor show, 
To deck the sensual slave of sin, 
Yet leave the freeborn soul within, 
In weeds of woe ! 

Monarchs, the powerful and the strong, 

Famous in history and in song 

Of olden time, 

Saw, by the stern decrees of fate, 

Their kingdoms lost, and desolate 

Their race sublime. 

Who is the champion ? who the strong ? 
Pontiff and priest, and sceptred throng ? 
On these shall fall 



COPLAS 1/S 


MANRIQUE 589 


As heavily the hand of Death, 


But oh, how false and full of guile 


As when it stays the shepherd's breath 


That world, which wore so soft a smile 


Beside his stall. 


But to betray ! 




She, that had been his friend before, 


I speak not of the Trojan name, 


Now from the fated monarch tore 


Neither its glory nor its shame 


Her charms away. 


Has met our eyes ; 




Nor of Rome's great and glorious dead, 


The countless gifts, the stately walls, 


Though we have heard so oft, and read, 


The royal palaces, and halls, 


Their histories. 


All filled with gold ; 




Plate with armorial bearings wrought, 


kittle avails it now to know 


Chambers with ample treasures fraught 


Df ages passed so long ago, 


Of wealth untold ; 


Nor how they rolled ; 




Our theme shall be of yesterday, 


The noble steeds, and harness bright, 


Which to oblivion sweeps away, 


And gallant lord, and stalwart knight, 


Like days of old. 


In rich array, 




Where shall we seek them now ? Alas ! 


Where is the King, Don Juan ? Where 


Like the bright dewdrops on the grass, 


Each royal prince and noble heir 


They passed away. 


Of Aragon ? 




Where are the courtly gallantries ? 


His brother, too, whose factious zeal 


The deeds of love and high emprise, 


Usurped the sceptre of Castile, 


In battle done ? 


Unskilled to reign ; 




What a gay, brilliant court had he, 


Tourney and joust, that charmed the 


When all the flower of chivalry 


eye, 


Was in his train ! 


And scarf, and gorgeous panoply, 




And nodding plume, 


But he was mortal ; and the breath 


What were they but a pageant scene ? 


That flamed from the hot forge of Death 


What but the garlands, gay and green, 


Blasted his years ; 


That deck the tomb ? 


Judgment of God ! that flame by thee 




When raging fierce and fearfully, 


Where are the high-born dames, and 


Was quenched in tears ! 


where 




Their gay attire, and jewelled hair, 


Spain's haughty Constable, the true 


And odors sweet ? 


And gallant Master, whom we knew 


Where are the gentle knights, that came 


Most loved of all ; 


To kneel, and breathe love's ardent 


Breathe not a whisper of his pride, 


flame, 


He on the gloomy scaffold died, 


Low at their feet ? 


Ignoble fall ! 


Where is the song of Troubadour ? 


The countless treasures of his care, 


Where are the lute and gay tambour 


His villages and villas fair, 


They loved of yore ? 


His mighty power, 


Where is the mazy dance of old, 


What were they all but grief and shame, 


The flowing robes, inwrought with gold, 


Tears and a broken heart, when came 


The dancers wore ? 


The parting hour ? 


And he who next the sceptre swayed, 


His other brothers, proud and high, 


Henry, whose royal court displayed 


Masters, who, in prosperity, 


Such power and pride ; 


Might rival kings ; 


Oh, in what winning smiles arrayed, 


Who made the bravest and the best 


The world its various pleasures laid 


The bondsmen of their high behest 


His throne beside ! 


Their underlings : 



590 



TRANSLATIONS 



What was their prosperous estate, 
When high exalted and elate 
With power and pride ? 
What, but a transient gleam of light, 
A flame, which, glaring at its height, 
Grew dim and died ? 

So many a duke of royal name, 
Marquis and count of spotless fame, 
And baron brave, 

That might the sword of empire wield, 
All these, Death, hast thou concealed 
In the dark grave ! 

Their deeds of mercy and of arms, 
In peaceful days, or war's alarms, 
When thou dost show, 
O Death, thy stern and angry face, 
One stroke of thy all-powerful mace 
Can overthrow. 

Unnumbered hosts, that threaten nigh, 
Pennon and standard flaunting high, 
And flag displayed ; 
High battlements intrenched around, 
Bastion, and moated wall, and mound, 
And palisade, 

And covered trench, secure and deep, 

All these cannot one victim keep, 

O Death, from thee, 

When thou dost battle in thy wrath, 

And thy strong shafts pursue their path 

Unerringly. 

O World ! so few the years we live, 

Would that the life which thou dost give 

Were life indeed ! 

Alas ! thy sorrows fall so fast, 

Our happiest hour is when at last 

The soul is freed. 

Our days are covered o'er with grief, 

And sorrows neither few nor brief 

Veil all in gloom ; 

Left desolate of real good, 

Within this cheerless solitude 

No pleasures bloom. 

Thy pilgrimage begins in tears, 
And ends in bitter doubts and fears, 
Or dark despair ; 
Midway so many toils appear, 
That he who lingers longest here 
Knows most of care. 



Thy goods are bought with many a groan, 

By the hot sweat of toil alone, 

And weary hearts ; 

Fleet-footed is the approach of woe, 

But with a lingering step and slow 

Its form departs. 

And he, the good man's shield and shade^ 

To whom all hearts their homage paid, 

As Virtue's son, 

Roderic Manrique, he whose name 

Is written on the scroll of Fame, 

Spain's champion ; 

His signal deeds and prowess high 

Demand no pompous eulogy, 

Ye saw his deeds ! 

Why should their praise in verse be sung | 

The name, that dwells on every tongue, 

No minstrel needs. 

To friends a friend ; how kind to all 
The vassals of this ancient hall 
And feudal fief ! 
To foes how stern a foe was he ! 
And to the valiant and the free 
How brave a chief ! 

What prudence with the old and wise : 

What grace in youthful gayeties ; 

In all how sage ! 

Benignant to the serf and slave, 

He snowed the base and falsely brave 

A lion's rage. 

His was Octavian's prosperous star, 

The rush of Csesar's conquering car 

At battle's call ; 

His, Scipio's virtue ; his, the skill 

And the indomitable will 

Of Hannibal. 

His was a Trajan's goodness, his 

A Titus' noble charities 

And righteous laws ; 

The arm of Hector, and the might 

Of Tully, to maintain the right 

In truth's just cause ; 

The clemency of Antonine, 
Aurelius' countenance divine, 
Firm, gentle, still ; 
The eloquence of Adrian, 
And Theodosius' love to man, 
And generous will ; 



COPLAS DE MANRIQUE 



S9» 



In tented field and bloody fray, 
An Alexander's vigorous sway 
And stern command ; 
The faith of Constantine ; ay, more, 
The fervent love Camillus bore 
His native land. 

He left no well-filled treasury, 

He heaped no pile of riches high, 

Nor massive plate ; 

He fought the Moors, and, in their fall, 

City and tower and castled wall 

Were his estate. 

Upon the hard-fought battle-ground, 
Brave steeds and gallant riders found 
A common grave ; 

And there the warrior's hand did gain 
The rents, and the long vassal train, 
That conquest gave. 

And if of old his halls displayed 
The honored and exalted grade 
His worth had gained, 
So, in the dark, disastrous hour, 
Brothers and bondsmen of his power 
His hand sustained. 

After high deeds, not left untold, 

In the stern warfare which of old 

'T was his to share, 

Such noble leagues he made that more 

And fairer regions than before 

His guerdon were. 

These are the records, half effaced, 

Which, with the hand of youth, he traced 

On history's page ; 

But with fresh victories he drew 

Each fading character anew 

In his old age. 

By his unrivalled skill, by great 
And veteran service to the state, 
By worth adored, 
He stood, in his high dignity, 
The proudest knight of chivalry, 
Knight of the Sword. 

He found his cities and domains 
Beneath a tyrant's galling chains 
And cruel power ; 
But, by fierce battle and blockade, 
Soon his own banner was displayed 
From every tower. 



By the tried valor of his hand, 

His monarch and his native land 

Were nobly served ; 

Let Portugal repeat the story, 

And proud Castile, who shared the glory 

His arms deserved. 

And when so oft, for weal or woe, 

His life upon the fatal throw 

Had been cast down ; 

When he had served, with patriot zeal, 

Beneath the banner of Castile, 

His sovereign's crown ; 

And done such deeds of valor strong, 

That neither history nor song 

Can count them all ; 

Then, on Ocana's castled rock, 

Death at his portal came to knock, 

With sudden call, 

Saying, "Good Cavalier, prepare 
To leave this world of toil and care 
With joyful mien ; 
Let thy strong heart of steel this day 
Put on its armor for the fray, 
The closing scene. 

" Since thou hast been, in battle-strife, 

So prodigal of health and life, 

For earthly fame, 

Let virtue nerve thy heart again ; 

Loud on the last stern battle-plain 

They call thy name. 



" Think not the struggle that draws 
Too terrible for man, nor fear 
To meet the foe ; 
Nor let thy noble spirit grieve, 
Its life of glorious fame to leave 
On earth below. 



" A life of honor and of worth 

Has no eternity on earth, 

'T is but a name ; 

And yet its glory far exceeds 

That base and sensual life, which leads 

To want and shame. 

" The eternal life, beyond the sky, 
Wealth cannot purchase, nor the high 
And proud estate ; 
The soul in dalliance laid, the spirit 
Corrupt with sin, shall not inherit 
A joy so great. 



5* 



Tf ANSLATIONS 



" But the good monk, in cloistered 'ill, 
Shall gain it by his book and bell, 
His prayers and tears; 

And the brave knight, whose «J»m en- 
dures 
Fierce battle, and against the Moonra 
His standard rears. 

" And thou, brave knight, whoso iiand has 

poured 
The life-blood of the Pagan horda 
O'er all the land, 

In heaven shalt thou receive, at eugth, 
The guerdon of thine earthly aiteugth 
And dauntless hand. 

" Cheered onward by this prvyaiae sure, 

Strong in the faith entire acd pure 

Thou dost profess, 

Depart, thy hope is certainly, 

The third, the better life on high 

Shalt thou possess." 

"O Death, no more, no nvwe delay; 

My spirit longs to flee sway, 

And be at rest; 

The will of Heaven my will shall be, 

I bow to the divine decree, 

To God's behest. 

" My soul is ready to depart, 

No thought rebels, t^e obedient heart 

Breathes forth no firjh; 

The wish on earth to linger still 

Were vain, wheia 't is God's sovereign 

will 
That we shall die., 

"O thou, that for our sins didst take 
A human form, and humbly make 
Thy home on earth; 
Thou, that to thy divinity 
A human nature didst ally 
By mortal birth, 

" And in that f o?m didst suffer here 
Torment, and agony, and fear, 
So patiently; 

By thy redeeming grace alone, 
And r»ot f r merits of my own, 
Oh, p*r§ i me!" 



As thus the dying warrior prayed, 
Without one gathering mist or shade 
Upon his mind; 
Encircled by his family, 
Watched by affection's gentle eye 
So soft and kind; 

His soul to Him who gave it rose; 

God lead it to its long repose, 

Its glorious rest ! 

And, though the warrior's sun has set, 

Its light shall linger round us yet, 

Bright, radiant, blest. 



SONNETS 

I 

THE GOOD SHEPHERD 

(El Buen Pastor) 
BY LOPE DE VEGA 

Shepherd ! who with thine amorous, sylvan 
song 

Hast broken the slumber that encom- 
passed me, 

Who mad'st thy crook from the accursed 
tree, 

On which thy powerful arms were 
stretched so long ! 
Lead me to mercy's ever -flowing foun- 
tains; 

For thou my shepherd, guard, and guidr 
shalt be; 

I will obey thy voice, and wait to see 

Thy feet all beautiful upon the rnoun 
tains. 
Hear, Shepherd ! thou who for thy flock 
art dying, 

Oh, wash away these scarlet sins, foi 
thou 

Rejoicest at the contrite sinner's vow. 
Oh, wait ! to thee my weary soul is cry- 
ing* 

Wait for me ! Yet why ask it, when I 
see, 

With feet nailed to the cross, thou rt 
waiting still for me ! 



THE BROOK 



593 



TO-MORROW 

(Manana) 

BY LOPE DE VEGA 

Lord, what am I, that, with unceasing care, 
Thou didst seek after me, that thou didst 

wait, 
Wet with unhealthy dews, before my 

gate, 
And pass the gloomy nights of winter 

there ? 
Oh, strange delusion, that I did not greet 
Thy blest approach ! and oh, to Heaven 

how lost, 
If my ingratitude's unkindly frost 
Has chilled the bleeding wounds upon 

thy feet ! 
How oft my guardian angel gently cried, 
" Soul, from thy casement look, and thou 

shalt see 
How he persists to knock and wait for 

thee ! " 
And, oh ! how often to that voice of sorrow, 
"To-morrow we will open," I replied, 
And when the morrow came I answered 

still, " To-morrow." 



Ill 

THE NATIVE LAND 

(El Patrio Cielo) 

BY FRANCISCO DE ALDANA 

Clear fount of light ! my native land on 

high, 
Bright with a glory that shall never 

fade! 
Mansion of truth ! without a veil or 

shade, 
Thy holy quiet meets the spirit's eye. 
There dwells tha soul in its ethereal es- 
sence, 
Gasping no longer for life's feeble 

breath ; 
But, sentinelled in heaven, its glorious 

presence 
With pitying eye beholds, yet fears not, 

death. 



Beloved country ! banished from thy shore, 

A stranger in this prison-house of clay, 

The exiled spirit weeps and sighs for 

thee ! 

Heavenward the bright perfections I adore 

Direct, and the sure promise cheers the 

way, 
That, whither love aspires, there shaHf 
my dwelling be. 



IV 



THE IMAGE OF GOD 

(La Imagen de Dios) 
BY FRANCISCO DE ALDANA 

O Lord ! who seest, from yon starry 

height, 
Centred in one the future and the past, 
Fashioned in thine own image, see how 

fast 
The world obscures in me what once was 

bright ! 
Eternal Sun ! the warmth which thou hast 

given, 
To cheer life's flowery April, fast de- 
cays ; 
Yet, in the hoary winter of my days, 
Forever green shall be my trust in 

Heaven. 
Celestial King ! oh let thy presence pass 
Before my spirit, and an image fair 
Shall meet that look of mercy from on 

high, 
As the reflected image in a glass 

Doth meet the look of him who seeks it 

there, 
And owes its being to the gazer's eye. 



THE BROOK 

(A UN Arroyuelo) 

ANONYMOUS 

Laugh of the mountain ! — lyre of bird 
and tree ! 
Pomp of the meadow ! mirror of the 
morn ! 



594 



TRANSLATIONS 



The soul of April, unto whom are born 

The rose and jessamine, leaps wild in 
thee ! 
Although, where'er thy devious current 
strays, 

The lap of earth with gold and silver 
teems, 

To me thy clear proceeding brighter 
seems 

Than golden sands, that charm each 
shepherd's gaze. 
How without guile thy bosom, all trans- 
parent 

As the pure crystal, lets the curious eye 

Thy secrets scan, thy smooth, round peb- 
bles count ! 
How, without malice murmuring, glides thy 
current ! 

O sweet simplicity of days gone by ! 

Thou shun'st the haunts of man, to dwell 
in limpid fount ! 



ANCIENT SPANISH BALLADS 

In the chapter with this title in Outre-Mer, besides 
illustrations from Byron and Lockhart are the three 
following examples, contributed by Mr. Longfellow. 

I 

Eio Verde, Rio Verde ! 

Many a corpse is bathed in thee, 
Both of Moors and eke of Christians, 

Slain with swords most cruelly. 

And thy pure and crystal waters 
Dappled are with crimson gore ; 

For between the Moors and Christians 
Long has been the fight and sore. 

Dukes and counts fell bleeding near thee, 
Lords of high renown were slain, 

Perished many a brave hidalgo 
Of the noblemen of Spain. 



II 



"King Alfonso the Eighth, having exhausted his 
treasury in war, wishes to lay a tax of five farthings 
upon each of the C.istilian hidalgos, in order to defray 
the expenses of a journey from Burgos to Cuenca. This 
proposition of the king was met with disdain by the 
noblemen who had been assembled on the occasion." 

Don Nuno, Count of Lara, 

In anger and in pride, 
Forgot all reverence for the king, 

And thus in wrath replied : 



"Our noble ancestors," quoth he, 

" Ne'er such a tribute paid ; 
Nor shall the king receive of us 

What they have once gainsaid. 

" The base-born soul who deems it just 

May here with thee remain ; 
But follow me, ye cavaliers, 

Ye noblemen of Spain." 

Forth followed they the noble Count, 
They marched to Glera's plain ; 

Out of three thousand gallant knights 
Did only three remain. 

They tied the tribute to their spears, 

They raised it in the air, 
And they sent to tell their lord the king 

That his tax was ready there. 

" He may send and take by force,''' said 
they, 

" This paltry sum of gold ; 
But the goodly gift of liberty 

Cannot be bought and sold." 



Ill 



" One of the finest of the historic ballads is that 
which describes Bernardo's march to Roncesvalles. He 
sallies forth ' with three thousand Leonese and more,' 
to protect the glory and freedom of his native land. 
From all sides, the peasantry of the land flock to the 
hero's standard." 

The peasant leaves his plough afield, 

The reaper leaves his hook, 
And from his hand the shepherd-boy 

Lets fall the pastoral crook. 

The young set up a shout of joy. 

The old forget their years, 
The feeble man grows stout of heart, 

No more the craven fears. 

All rush to Bernard's standard, 

And on liberty they call ; 
They cannot brook to wear the yoke, 

When threatened by the Gaul. 

" Free were we born," 't is thus they cry t 

" And willingly pay we 
The duty that we owe our king, 

By the divine decree. 

" But God forbid that we obey 
The laws of foreign knaves, 



VIDA DE SAN MILLAN 



595 



Tarnish the glory of our sires, 
Aiid make our children slaves. 

" Our hearts have not so craven grown, 

So bloodless all our veins, 
So vigorless our brawny arms, 

As to submit to chains. 

W Has the audacious Frank, forsooth, 
Subdued these seas and lands ? 

Shall he a bloodless victory have ? 
No, not while we have hands. 

" He shall learn that the gallant Leonese 

Can bravely fight and fall, 
But that they know not how to yield ; 

They are Castilians all. 

" Was it for this the Roman power 

Of old was made to yield 
Unto Numantia's valiant hosts 

On many a bloody field ? 

" Shall the bold lions that have bathed 

Their paws in Libyan gore, 
Crouch basely to a feebler foe, 

And dare the strife no more ? 

" Let the false king sell town and tower, 

But not his vassals free ; 
For to subdue the free-born soul 

No royal power hath he ! " 

VIDA DE SAN MILLAN 

BY GONZALO DE BERCEO 

And when the kings were in the field, — 

their squadrons in array, — 
With lance in rest they onward pressed to 

mingle in the fray ; 
But soon upon the Christians fell a terror 

of their foes, — 
These were a numerous army, — a little 

handful those. 

And while the Christian people stood in 

this uncertainty, 
Upward to heaven they turned their eyes, 

and fixed their thoughts on high ; 
And there two figures they beheld, all 

beautiful and bright, 
Even than the pure new-fallen snow their 

garments were more white. 



They rode upon two horses more white 

than crystal sheen, 
And arms they bore such as before no 

mortal man had seen ; 
The one, he held a crosier, — a pontiff's 

mitre wore ; 
The other held a crucifix, — such man ne'et 

saw before. 

Their faces were angelical, celestial forms 

had they, — 
And downward through the fields of air 

they urged their rapid way ; 
They looked upon the Moorish host with 

fierce and angry look, 
And in their hands, with dire portent, their 

naked sabres shook. 

The Christian host, beholding this, straight- 
way take heart again ; 

They fall upon their bended knees, all rest- 
ing on the plain, 

And each one with his clenched fist to 
smite his breast begins, 

And promises to God on high he will for- 
sake his sins. 

And when the heavenly knights drew near 

unto the battle-ground, 
They dashed among the Moors and dealt 

unerring blows around ; 
Such deadly havoc there they made the 

foremost ranks along, 
A panic terror spread unto the hindmost of 

the throng. 

Together with these two good knights, the 

champions of the sky, 
The Christians rallied and began to smite 

full sore and high ; 
The Moors raised up their voices and by 

the Koran swore 
That in their lives such deadly fray they 

ne'er had seen before. 

Down went the misbelievers, — fast sped 

the bloody fight, — 
Some ghastly and dismembered lay, and 

some half dead with fright : 
Full sorely they repented that to the field 

they came, 
For they saw that from the battle they 

should retreat with shame. 



596 



TRANSLATIONS 



Another thing befell them, — they dreamed 

not of such woes, — 
The very arrows that the Moors shot from 

their twanging bows 
Turned back against them in their flight 

and wounded them full sore, 
And every blow they dealt the foe was 

paid in drops of gore. 

Now he that bore the crosier, and the papal 
crown had on, 

Was the glorified Apostle, the brother of 
Saint John ; 

And he that held the crucifix, and wore the 
monkish hood, 

Was the holy SanMillan of Cogolla's neigh- 
borhood. 



SAN MIGUEL, THE CONVENT 
(San Miguel de la Tumba) 
BY GONZALO DE BERCEO 

San Miguel de la Tumba is a convent 
vast and wide ; 

The sea encircles it around, and groans on 
every side : 

It is a wild and dangerous place, and many 
woes betide 

The monks who in that burial-place in pen- 
itence abide. 

Within those dark monastic walls, amid the 

ocean flood, 
Of pious, fasting monks there dwelt a holy 

brotherhood ; 
To the Madonna's glory there an altar high 

was placed, 
And a rich and costly image the sacred 

altar graced. 

Exalted high upon a throne, the Virgin 

Mother smiled, 
And, as the custom is, she held within her 

arms the Child ; 
The kings and wise men of the East were 

kneeling by her side ; 
Attended was she like a queen whom God 

had sanctified. 

Descending low before her face a screen of 

feathers hung, — 
A moscader, or fan for flies, 't is called in 

vulgar tongue ; 



From the feathers of the peacock's wing 
't was fashioned bright and fair, 

And glistened like the heaven above when 
all its stars are there. 

It chanced that, for the people's sins, fell 

the lightning's blasting stroke : 
Forth from all four the sacred walls the 

flames consuming broke ; 
The sacred robes were all consumed, missal 

and holy book ; 
And hardly with their lives the monks their 

crumbling walls forsook. 

But though the desolating flame raged 

fearfully and wild, 
It did not reach the Virgin Queen, it did not 

reach the Child ; 
It did not reach the feathery screen before 

her face that shone, 
Nor injure in a farthing's worth the image 

or the throne. 

The image it did not consume, it did not 
burn the screen ; 

Even in the value of a hair they were not 
hurt, I ween ; 

Not even the smoke did reach them, nor in- 
jure more the shrine 

Than the bishop hight Don Tello has been 
hurt by hand of mine. 



SONG 

She is a maid of artless grace, 
Gentle in form, and fair of face* 

Tell me, thou ancient mariner, 

That sailest on the sea, 
If ship, or sail, or evening star 

Be half so fair as she ! 

Tell me, thou gallant cavalier, 

Whose shining arms I see, 
If steel, or sword, or battle-field 

Be half so fair as she ! 

Tell me, thou swain, that guard'st thy 
flock 

Beneath the shadowy tree, 
If flock, or vale, or mountain-ridge 

Be half so fair as she 1 



FROM THE CANCIONEROS 



597 



SANTA TERESA'S BOOK-MARK 

(Letrilla que llevaba por Registro en su 
Breviario) 

BY SANTA TERESA DE AVILA 

Let nothing disturb thee, 
Nothing affright thee; 
All things are passing; 
God never changeth; 
Patient endurance 
Attaineth to all things; 
Who God possesseth 
In nothing is wanting; 
Alone God sufficeth. 



FROM THE CANCIONEROS 



EYES SO TRISTFUL, EYES SO TRISTFUL 
(Ojos Tristes, Ojos Tristes) 

BY DIEGO DE SALDANA 

Eyes so tristful, eyes so tristful, 
Heart so full of care and cumber, 
I was lapped in rest and slumber, 
Ye have made me wakeful, wistful ! 
In this life of labor endless 
Who shall comfort my distresses? 
Querulous my soul and friendless 
In its sorrow shuns caresses. 
Ye have made me, ye have made me 
Querulous of you, that care not, 
Eyes so tristful, yet I dare not 
Say to what ye have betrayed me. 



II 

SOME DAY, SOME DAY 
(Alguna Vez) 

BY CRISTOBAL DE GASTILLEJO 

Some day, some day, 
O troubled breast, 
Shalt thou find rest. 
If Love in thee 
To grief give birth, 
Six feet of earth 



Can more than he; 
There calm and free 
And unoppressed 
Shalt thou find rest. 

The unattained 
In life at last, 
When life is passed, 
Shall all be gained; 
And no more pained, 
No more distressed, 
Shalt thou find rest. 



Ill 

OJME, O DEATH, SO SILENT FLYING 

(Ven, Muerte tan escondida) 

BY EL COMMENDADOR ESCRIVA 

Come, O Death, so silent flying 
That unheard thy coming be, 
Lest the sweet delight of dying 
Bring life back again to me. 
For thy sure approach perceiving, 
In my constancy and pain 
I new life should win again, 
Thinking that I am not living. 
So to me, unconscious lying, 
All unknown thy coming be, 
Lest the sweet delight of dying 
Bring life back again to me. 
Unto him who finds thee hateful, 
Death, thou art inhuman pain; 
But to me, who dying gain, 
Life is but a task ungrateful. 
Come, then, with my wish complying; 
All unheard thy coming be, 
Lest the sweet delight of dying 
Bring life back again to me. 

IV 

GLOVE OF BLACK IN WHITE HANL 
BARE 

Glove of black in white hand bare, 
And about her forehead pale 
Wound a thin, transparent veil, 
That doth not conceal her hair; 
Sovereign attitude and air, 
Cheek and neck alike displayed, 
With coquettish charms arrayed, 
Laughing eyes and fugitive; — 
This is killing men that live, 
'Tis not mourning for the dead. 



FROM THE SWEDISH AND DANISH 



PASSAGES FROM FRITHIOF'S 
SAGA 

BY ESAIAS TEGNER 



FRITHIOF'S HOMESTEAD 

Three miles extended around the fields of 

the homestead, on three sides 
Valleys and mountains and hills, but on the 

fourth side was the ocean. 
Birch woods crowned the summits, but down 

the slope of the hillsides 
Flourished the golden corn, and man-high 

was waving the rye-field. 
Lakes, full many in number, their mirror 

held up for the mountains, 
Held for the forests up, in whose depths 

the high-horned reindeers 
Had their kingly walk, and drank of a hun- 
dred brooklets. 
But in the valleys widely around, there fed 

on the greensward 
Herds with shining hides and udders that 

longed for the milk-pail. 
'Mid these scattered, now here and now 

there, were numberless flocks of 
Sheep with fleeces white, as thou seest the 

white-looking stray clouds, 
Flock-wise spread o'er the heavenly vault, 

when it bloweth in spring-time. 



Coursers two times twelve, all mettlesome*, 

fast fettered storm-winds, 
Stamping stood in the line of stalls, and 

tugged at their fodder. 
Knotted with red were their manes, and 

their hoofs all white with steel shoes. 
Th' banquet-hall, a house by itself, was 

timbered of hard fir. 
Not five hundred men (at ten times twelve 

to the hundred) 
Filled up the roomy hall, when assembled 

for drinking, at Yule-tide. 
Thorough the hall, as long as it was, went a 

table of holm-oak, 
Polished and white, as of steel ; the columns 

twain of the High-seat 
Stood at the end thereof, two gods carved 

out of an elm-tree ; 
Odin with lordly look, and Frey with the 

sun on his frontlet. 
Lately between the two, on a bear-skin (the 

skin it was coal-black, 
Scarlet-red was the throat, but the paws 

were shodclen with silver), 
Thorsten sat with his friends, Hospitality 

sitting with Gladness. 
Oft, when the moon through the cloud-rack 

flew, related the old man 
Wonders from distant lands he had seen, 

and cruises of Vikings 
Far away on the Baltic, and Sea of the 

West, and the White Sea. 



PASSAGES FROM FRITHIOF'S SAGA 



599 



Hushed sat the listening bench, and their 

glances hung on the graybeard's 
Lips, as a bee on the rose ; but the Scald 

was thinking of Brage, 
Where, with his silver beard, and runes on 

his tongue, he is seated 
Under the leafy beech, and tells a tradition 

by Mimer's 
Ever-murmuring wave, himself a living 

tradition. 
Midway the floor (with thatch was it 

strewn) burned ever the fire-flame 
Glad on its stone-built hearth ; and thor- 
ough the wide-mouthed smoke-flue 
Looked the stars, those heavenly friends, 

down into the great hall. 
Round the walls, upon nails of steel, were 

hanging in order 
Breastplate and helmet together, and here 

and there among them 
Downward lightened a sword, as in winter 

evening a star shoots. 
More than helmets and swords the shields 

in the hall were resplendent, 
White as the orb of the sun, or white as 

the moon's disk of silver. 
Ever and anon went a maid round the 

board, and filled up the drink-horns, 
Ever she cast down her eyes and blushed ; 

in the shield her reflection 
Blushed, too, even as she ; this gladdened 

the drinking champions. 



A SLEDGE-RIDE ON THE ICE 

King Ring with his queen to the banquet 

did fare, 
On the lake stood the ice so mirror-clear. 

"Fare not o'er the ice," the stranger 

cries ; 
*' It will burst, and full deep the cold bath 

lies." 

"The king drowns not easily," Ring out- 
spake ; 
" He who 's afraid may go round the lake." 

Threatening and dark looked the stranger 

round, 
His steel shoes with haste on his feet he 

bound. 



The sledge-horse starts forth strong and 

free ; 
He snorteth flames, so glad is he. 

"Strike out," screamed the king, "my 

trotter good, 
Let us see if thou art of Sleipner's blood ** 

They go as a storm goes over the lake, 
No heed to his queen doth the old man 
take. 

But the steel-shod champion standeth not 

still, 
He passeth them by as swift as he will. 

He carves many runes in the frozen tide, 
Fair Ingeborg o'er her own name doth 
glide. 



Ill 



FRITHIOF'S TEMPTATION 

Spring is coming, birds are twittering, 
forests leaf, and smiles the sun, 

And the loosened torrents downward, sing- 
ing, to the ocean run ; 

Glowing like the cheek of Freya, peeping 
rosebuds 'gin to ope, 

And in human hearts awaken love of life, 
and joy, and hope. 

Now will hunt the ancient monarch, and 
the queen shall join the sport : 

Swarming in its gorgeous splendor, is as- 
sembled all the court ; 

Bows ring loud, and quivers rattle, stallions 
paw the ground alway, 

And, with hoods upon their eyelids, scream 
the falcons for their prey. 

See, the Queen of the chase advances \ 

Frithiof, gaze not at the sight ! 
Like a star upon a spring-cloud sits she on 

her palfrey white. 
Half of Freya, half of Rota, yet more 

beauteous than these two, 
And from her light hat of purple wave 

aloft the feathers blue. 

Gaze not at her eyes' blue heaven, gaze 

not at her golden hair ! 
Oh beware ! her waist is slender, full her 

bosom is, beware ! 



6oo 



TRANSLATIONS 



Look not at the rose and lily on her cheek 

that shifting play, 
List not to the voice beloved, whispering 

like the wind of May. 

Now the huntsman's band is ready. Hur- 
rah ! over hill and dale ! 

Horns ring, and the hawks right upward 
to the hall of Odin sail. 

All the dwellers in the forest seek in fear 
their cavern homes, 

3ut, with spear outstretched before her, 
after them the Valkyr comes. 



Then threw Frithiof down his mantle, and 

upon the greensward spread, 
A.nd the ancient king so trustful laid on 

Frithiof's knee his head, 
Slept as calmly as the hero sleepeth, after 

war's alarm, 
Dn his shield, or as an infant sleeps upon 

its mother's arm. 

As he slumbers, hark ! there sings a coal- 
black bird upon the bough ; 

"Hasten, Frithiof, slay the old man, end 
your quarrel at a blow : 

Take his queen, for she is thine, and once 
the bridal kiss she gave, 

Now no human eye beholds thee, deep and 
silent is the grave." 

Frithiof listens ; hark ! there sings a snow- 
white bird upon the bough : 

" Though no human eye beholds thee, 
Odin's eye beholds thee now. 

Coward ! wilt thou murder sleep, and a 
defenceless old man slay ! 

Whatsoe'er thou winn'st, thou canst not 
win a hero's fame this way." 

Thus the two wood-birds did warble : 

Frithiof took his war-sword good, 
With a shudder hurled it from him, far 

into the gloomy wood. 
Coal-black bird flies down to Nastrand, but 

on light, unfolded wings, 
Like the tone of harps, the other, sounding 

towards the sun, upsprings. 

Straight the ancient king awakens. " Sweet 
has been my sleep," he said ; 

"Pleasantly sleeps one in the shadow, 
guarded by a brave man's blade. 



But where is thy sword, O stranger? 

Lightning's brother, where is he ? 
Who thus parts you, who should never 

from each other parted be ! " 

" It avails not," Frithiof answered ; " in 

the North are other swords : 
Sharp, O monarch ! is the sword's tongue, 

and it speaks not peaceful words ; 
Murky spirits dwell in steel blades, spirits I 

from the Niffelhem ; 
Slumber is not safe before them, silver 

locks but anger them." 



IV 



FRITHIOF'S FAREWELL 

No more shall I see 

In its upward motion 

The smoke of the Northland. Man is a 

slave : 
The fates decree. 
On the waste of the ocean 
There is my fatherland,, there is my grave. 

Go not to the strand, 
Ring, with thy bride, 
After the stars spread their light through 

the sky. 
Perhaps in the sand, 
Washed up by the tide, 
The bones of the outlawed Viking may lie. 

Then, quoth the king, 
" 'T is mournful to hear 
A man like a whimpering maiden cry. 
The death-song they sing 
Even now in mine ear. 
What avails it? He who is born must 
die." 



THE CHILDREN OF THE LORD'S 
SUPPER 

BY ESAIAS TEGNER 

Pentecost, day of rejoicing, had come. 

The church of the village* 
Gleaming stood in the morning's sheen. 

On the spire of the belfry, 
Decked with a brazen cock, the friendly 

flames of the Spring-sun 



THE CHILDREN OF THE LORD'S SUPPER 



6a 



Glanced like the tongues of fire, beheld by 

Apostles aforetime. 
Clear was the heaven and blue, and May, 

with her cap crowned with roses, 
Stood in her holiday dress in the fields, and 

the wind and the brooklet 
Murmured gladness and peace, God's- 

peace ! with lips rosy-tinted 
Whispered the race of the flowers, and 

merry on balancing branches 
Birds were singing their carol, a jubilant 

hymn to the Highest. 
Swept and clean was the churchyard. 

Adorned like a leaf-woven arbor 
Stood its old-fashioned gate ; and within 

upon each cross of iron 
Hung was a fragrant garland, new twined 

by the hands of affection. 
Even the dial, that stood on a mound among 

the departed, 
(There full a hundred years had it stood,) 

was embellished with blossoms. 
Like to the patriarch hoary, the sage of his 

kith and the hamlet, 
Who on his birthday is crowned by children 

and children's children, 
So stood the ancient prophet, and mute 

with his pencil of iron 
Marked on the tablet of stone, and mea- 
sured the time and its changes, 
While all around at his feet, an eternity 

slumbered in quiet. 
Also the church within was adorned, for 

this was the season 
When the 3 r oung, their parents' hope, and 

the loved-ones of heaven, 
Should at the foot of the altar renew the 

vows of their baptism. 
Therefore each nook and corner was swept 

and cleaned, and the dust was 
Blown from the walls and ceiling, and 

from the oil-painted benches. 
There stood the church like a garden ; the 

Feast of the Leafy Pavilions 
Saw we in living presentment. From noble 

arms on the church wall 
Grew forth a cluster of leaves, and the 

preacher's pulpit c£ 9ak-wood 
Budded once more anew, j*s aforetime the 

rod before Aaron. 
Wreathed thereon was the Bible with 

leaves, and the dove, washed with 

silver, 
Under its canopy fastened, had on it a 

necklace of wind-flowers. 



But in front of the choir, round the altar- 
piece painted by Horberg, 

Crept a garland gigantic ; and bright-curl- 
ing tresses of angels 

Peeped, like the sun from a cloud, from 
out of the shadowy leaf-work. 

Likewise the lustre of brass, new-polished, 
blinked from the ceiling, 

And for lights there were lilies of Pentecost 
set in the sockets. 

Loud rang the bells already ; the throng- 
ing crowd was assembled 
Far from valleys and hills, to list to the 

holy preaching. 
Hark ! then roll forth at once the mighty 

tones of the organ, 
Hover like voices from God, aloft like 

invisible spirits. 
Like as Elias in heaven, when he cast from 

off him his mantle, 
So cast off the soul its garments of earth : 

and with one voice 
Chimed in the congregation, and sang an 

anthem immortal 
Of the sublime Wallin, of David's harp in 

the North-land 
Tuned to the choral of Luther ; the song 

on its mighty pinions 
Took every living soul, and lifted it gently 

to heaven, 
And each face did shine like the Holy One's 

face upon Tabor. 
Lo ! there entered then into the church the 

Reverend Teacher. 
Father he hight and he was in the parish ; 

a Christianly plainness 
Clothed from his head to his feet the old 

man of seventy winters. 
Friendly was he to behold, and glad as the 

heralding angel 
Walked he among the crowds, but still a 

contemplative grandeur 
Lay on his forehead as clear as on moss- 
covered gravestone a sunbeam. 
As in his inspiration (an evening twilight 

that faintly 
Gleams in the human soul, even now, from 

the day of creation) 
Th' Artist, the friend of heaven, imagines 

Saint John when in Patmos, 
Gray, with his eyes uplifted to heaven, so 

seemed then the old man ; 
Such was the glance of his eye, and such 

were his tresses of silver. 



602 



TRANSLATIONS 



All the congregation arose in the pews that 

were numbered. 
But with a cordial look, to the right and 

the left hand, the old man 
Nodding all hail and peace, disappeared in 

the innermost chancel. 

Simply and solemnly now proceeded the 

Christian service, 
Singing and prayer, and at last an ardent 

discourse from the old man. 
Many a moving word and warning, that out 

of the heart came, 
Fell like the dew of the morning, like 

manna on those in the desert. 
Then, when all was finished, the Teacher 

reentered the chancel, 
Followed therein by the young. The boys 

on the right had their places, 
Delicate figures, with close-curling hair 

and cheeks rosy-blooming. 
But on the left of these there stood the 

tremulous lilies, 
Tinged with the blushing light of the dawn, 

the diffident maidens, — 
Folding their hands in prayer, and their 

eyes cast down on the pavement. 
Now came, with question and answer, the 

catechism. In the beginning 
Answered the children with troubled and 

faltering voice, but the old man's 
Glances of kindness encouraged them soon, 

and the doctrines eternal 
Flowed, like the waters of fountains, so 

clear from lips unpolluted. 
Each time the answer was closed, and as 

oft as they named the Redeemer, 
Lowly louted the boys, and lowly the maid- 
ens all courtesied. 
Friendly the Teacher stood, like an angel 

of light there among them, 
And to the children explained the holy, the 

highest, in few words, 
Thorough, yet simple and clear, for sublim- 
ity always is simple, 
Both in sermon and song, a child can seize 

on its meaning. 
E'en as the green - growing bud unfolds 

when Springtide approaches, 
Leaf by leaf puts forth, and, warmed by 

the radiant sunshine, 
Blushes with purple and gold, till at last the 

perfected blossom 
Opens its odorous chalice, and rocks with 

its crown in the breezes*, 



So was unfolded here the Christian lore of 

salvation, 
Line by line from the soul of childhood. The 

fathers and mothers 
Stood behind them in tears, and were glad 

at the well-worded answer. 

Now went the old man up to the altar \ 
— and straightway transfigured 

(So did it seem unto me) was then the af- 
fectionate Teacher. 

Like the Lord's Prophet sublime, and awful 
as Death and as Judgment 

Stood he, the God - commissioned, the 
soul - searcher, earthward descend- 
ing. 

Glances, sharp as a sword, into hearts that 
to him were transparent 

Shot he ; his voice was deep, was low like 
the thunder afar off. 

So on a sudden transfigured he stood there, 
he spake and he questioned. 

"This is the faith of the Fathers, the 

faith the Apostles delivered, 
This is moreover the faith whereunto I 

baptized you, while still ye 
Lay on your mothers' breasts, and nearer 

the portals of heaven. 
Slumbering received you then the Holy 

Church in its bosom ; 
Wakened from sleep are ye now, and the 

light in its radiant splendor 
Downward rains from the heaven ; — to-day 

on the threshold of childhood 
Kindly she frees you again, to examine anc< 

make your election, 
For she knows naught of compulsion, and 

only conviction desireth. 
This is the hour of your trial, the turning- 
point of existence, 
Seed for the coming days ; without revc 

cation departeth 
Now from your lips the confession. Bethink 

ye, before ye make answer ! 
Think not, oh think not with guile to de- 
ceive the questioning Teacher. 
Sharp is his eye to-day, and a curse evei 

rests upon falsehood. 
Enter not with a lie on Life's journey ; the 

multitude hears you, 
Brothers and sisters and parents, what dear 

upon earth is and holy 
Standeth before your sight as a witness ; 

the Judge everlasting 



THE CHILDREN OF THE LORD'S SUPPER 



603 



Looks from the sun down upon you, and 

angels in waiting beside him 
Grave your confession in letters of fire 

upon tablets eternal. 
Thus, then, — believe ye in God, in the 

Father who this world created ? 
Him who redeemed it, the Son, and the 

Spirit where both are united ? 
Will ye promise me here, (a holy promise !) 

to cherish 
God more than all things earthly, and every 

man as a brother ? 
Will ye promise me here, to confirm your 

faith by your living, 
Th' heavenly faith of affection ! to hope, to 

forgive, and to suffer, 
Be what it may your condition, and walk 

before God in uprightness ? 
W^ill ye promise me this before God and 

man ? " — With a clear voice 
Answered the young men Yes ! and Yes ! 

with lips softly-breathing 
Answered the maidens eke. Then dis- 
solved from the brow of the Teacher 
Clouds with the lightnings therein, and he 

spake in accents more gentle, 
Soft as the evening's breath, as harps by 

Babylon's rivers. 

" Hail, then, hail to you all ! To the 
heirdom of heaven be ye welcome ! 

Children no more from this day, but by 
covenant brothers and sisters ! 

Yet, — for what reason not children ? Of 
such is the kingdom of heaven. 

Here upon earth an assemblage of children, 
in heaven one Father, 

Ruling them all as his household, — for- 
giving in turn and chastising, 

That is of human life a picture, as Scripture 
has taught us. 

Blest are the pure before God ! Upon pur- 
ity and upon virtue 

Resteth the Christian Faith ; she herself 
from on high is descended. 

Strong as a man and pure as a child, is the 
sum of the doctrine, 

Which the Divine One taught, and suffered 
and died on the cross for. 

Oh, as ye wander this day from childhood's 
sacred asylum 

Downward, and ever downward, and deeper 
in Age's chill valley, 

Oh, how soon will ye come, — too soon ! — 
and long to turn backward 



Up to its hill-tops again, to the sun-illu- 
mined, where Judgment 
Stood like a father before you, and Pardon, 

clad like a mother, 
Gave you her hand to kiss, and the loving 

heart was forgiven, 
Life was a play and your hands grasped 

after the roses of heaven ! 
Seventy years have I lived already ; the 

Father eternal 
Gave me gladness and care ; but the loveH 

est hours of existence, 
When I have steadfastly gazed in their 

eyes, I have instantly known them, 
Known them all again ; — they were my 

childhood's acquaintance. 
Therefore take from henceforth, as guides 

in the paths of existence, 
Prayer, with her eyes raised to heaven, 

and Innocence, bride of man's child- 
hood. 
Innocence, child beloved, is a guest from 

the world of the blessed, 
Beautiful, and in her hand a lily ; on life's 

roaring billows 
Swings she in safety, she heedeth them not, 

in the ship she is sleeping. 
Calmly she gazes around in the turmoil of 

men ; in the desert 
Angels descend and minister unto her ; she 

herself knoweth 
Naught of her glorious attendance ; but 

follows faithful and humble, 
Follows so long as she may her friend ; oh 

do not reject her, 
For she cometh from God and she holdeth 

the keys of the heavens. 
Prayer is Innocence' friend ; and willingly 

flieth incessant 
'Twixt the earth and the sky, the carrier- 
pigeon of heaven. 
Son of Eternity, fettered in Time, and an 

exile, the Spirit 
Tugs at his chains evermore, and struggle? 

like flame ever upward. 
Still he recalls with emotion his Father * 

manifold mansions, 
Thinks of the land of his fathers, where blos- 
somed more freshly the flowerets, 
Shone a more beautiful sun, and he played 

with the winged angels. 
Then grows the earth too narrow, too close ; 

and homesick for heaven 
Longs the wanderer again ; and the 

Spirit's longings are worship ; 



604 



TRANSLATIONS 



Worship is called his most beautiful hour, 

and its tongue is entreaty. 
Ah ! when the infinite burden of life de- 

scendeth upon us, 
Crushes to earth our hope, and, under the 

earth, in the graveyard, 
Then it is good to pray unto God ; for his 

sorrowing children 
Turns He ne'er from his door, but He heals 

and helps and consoles them. 
Yet is it better to pray when all things are 

prosperous with us, 
Pray in fortunate days, for life's most 

beautiful Fortune 
Kneels before the Eternal's throne ; and 

with hands interfolded, 
Praises thankful and moved the only giver 

of blessings. 
Or do ye know, ye children, one blessing 

that comes not from Heaven ? 
What has mankind forsooth, the poor ! that 

it has not received ? 
Therefore, fall in the dust and pray ! The 

seraphs adoring 
Cover with pinions six their face in the 

glory of Him who 
Hung his masonry pendent on naught, when 

the world He created. 
Earth declareth his might, and the firma- 
ment utters his glory. 
Races blossom and die, and stars fall 

downward from heaven, 
Downward like withered leaves ; at the 

last stroke of midnight, millenniums 
Lay themselves down at his feet, and He 

sees them, but counts them as no- 
thing. 
Who shall stand in his presence ? The 

wrath of the Judge is terrific, 
Casting the insolent down at a glance. 

When He speaks in his anger 
Hillocks skip like the kid, and mountains 

leap like the roebuck. 
Yet, — why are ye afraid, ye children ? 

This awful avenger, 
Ah ! is a merciful God ! God's voice was 

not in the earthquake, 
Not in the fire, nor the storm, but it was 

in the whispering breezes. 
Love is the root of creation ; God's essence ; 

worlds without number 
Lie in his bosom like children ; He made 

them for this purpose only. 
Only to love and to be loved again, He 

breathed forth his spirit 



Into 



the slumbering dust, and upright 

standing, it laid its 
Hand on its heart, and felt it was warm 

with a flame out of heaven. 
Quench, oh quench not that flame ! It is 

the breath of your being. 
Love is life, but hatred is death. Not 

father nor mother 
Loved you, as God has loved you ; for 

't was that you may be happy 
Gave He his only Son. When He bowed 

down his head in the death-hour 
Solemnized Love its triumph ; the sacrifice 

then was completed. 
Lo ! then was rent on a sudden the veil of 

the temple, dividing 
Earth and heaven apart, and the dead from 

their sepulchres rising 
Whispered with pallid lips and low in the 

ears of each other 
Th' answer, but dreamed of before, to cre- 
ation's enigma, — Atonement ! 
Depths of Love are Atonement's depths, 

for Love is Atonement. 
Therefore, child of mortality, love thou 

the merciful Father ; 
Wish what the Holy One wishes, and not 

from fear, but affection ; 
Fear is the virtue of slaves ; but the heart 

that loveth is willing ; 
Perfect was before God, and perfect is 

Love, and Love only. 
Lovest thou God as thou oughtest, then 

lovest thou likewise thy brethren ; 
One is the sun in heaven, and one, only one, 

is Love also. 
Bears not each human figure the godlike 

stamp on his forehead ? 
Keadest thou not in his face thine origin ? 

Is he not sailing 
Lost like thyself on an ocean unknown, and 

is he not guided 
By the same stars that guide thee ? Why 

shouldst thou hate then thy bro- 
ther? 
Hateth he thee, forgive ! For 't is sweet 

to stammer one letter 
Of the Eternal's language ; — on earth it 

is called Forgiveness ! 
Knowest thou Him, who forgave, with the 

crown of thorns on his temples ? 
Earnestly prayed for his foes, for his mur- 
derers ? Say, dost thou know Him ? 
Ah ! thou confessest his name, so follow 

likewise his example, 



THE CHILDREN OF THE LORD'S SUPPER 



605 



Think of thy brother no ill, but throw a 
veil over his failings, 

Guide the erring aright ; for the good, the 
heavenly shepherd 

Took the lost lamb in his arms, and bore it 
back to its mother. 

This is the fruit of Love, and it is by its 
fruits that we know it. 

Love is the creature's welfare, with God ; 
but Love among mortals 

Is but an endless sigh ! He longs, and en- 
dures, and stands waiting, 

Suffers and yet rejoices, and smiles with 
tears on his eyelids. 

Hope, — so is called upon earth his re- 
compense, — Hope, the befriend- 

^ ing ' ' • 

Does what she can, for she points evermore 

up to heaven, and faithful 
Plunges her anchor's peak in the depths of 

the grave, and beneath it 
Paints a more beautiful world, a dim, but 

a sweet play of shadows ! 
Races, better than we, have leaned on her 

wavering promise, 
Having naught else but Hope. Then praise 

we our Father in heaven, 
Him, who has given us more ; for to us 

has Hope been transfigured, 
jroping no longer in night ; she is Faith, 

she is living assurance. 
Faith is enlightened Hope ; she is light, is 

the eye of affection, 
Dreams of the longing interprets, and 

carves their visions in marble. 
Faith is the sun of life ; and her counte- 
nance shines like the Hebrew's, 
For she has looked upon God ; the heaven 

on its stable foundation 
Draws she with chains down to earth, and 

the New Jerusalem sinketh 
Splendid with portals twelve in golden va- 
pors descending. 
There enraptured she wanders, and looks 

at the figures majestic, 
Fears not the winged crowd, in the midst 

of them all is her homestead. 
Therefore love and believe ; for works will 

follow spontaneous 
Even as day does the sun ; the Right from 

the Good is an offspring, 
Love in a bodily shape ; and Christian 

works are no more than 
Animate Love and Faith, as flowers are the 

animate Springtide. 



Works do follow us all unto God; there 

stand and bear witness 
Not what they seemed, — but what they 

were only. Blessed is he who 
Hears their confession secure ; they are 

mute upon earth until death's hand 
Opens the mouth of the silent. Ye chil- 
dren, does Death e'er alarm you ? 
Death is the brother of Love, twin-brother 

is he, and is only 
More austere to behold. With a kiss mpon 

lips that are fading 
Takes he the soul and departs, and, rocked 

in the arms of affection, 
Places the ransomed child, new born, 'fore 

the face of its father. 
Sounds of his coming already I hear, — 

see dimly his pinions, 
Swart as the night, but with stars strewn 

upon them ! I fear not before 

him. 
Death is only release, and in mercy is mute. 

On his bosom 
Freer breathes, in its coolness, my breast ; 

and face to face standing 
Look I on God as He is, a sun unpolluted 

by vapors ; 
Look on the light of the ages I loved, the 

spirits majestic, 
Nobler, better than I ; they stand by the 

throne all transfigured, 
Vested in white, and with harps of gold, 

and are singing an anthem, 
Writ in the climate of heaven, in the lan- 
guage spoken by angels. 
You, in like manner, ye children beloved; 

He one day shall gather, 
Never forgets He the weary ; — then wel- 
come, ye loved ones hereafter ! 
Meanwhile forget not the keeping of vows, 

forget not the promise, 
Wander from holiness onward to holiness ; 

earth shall ye heed not ; 
Earth is but dust and heaven is light ; I 

have pledged you to heaven. 
God of the universe, hear me ! thou foun- 
tain of Love everlasting, 
Hark to the voice of thy servant ! I send 

up my prayer to thy heaven ! 
Let me hereafter not miss at thy throne 

one spirit of all these, 
Whom thou hast given me here ! I havf 

loved them all like a father. 
May they bear witness for me, that ] 

taught them the way of salvation^ 



6o6 



TRANSLATIONS 



Faithful, so far as I knew, of thy word ; 

again may they know me, 
Fall on their Teacher's breast, and before 

thy face may I place them, 
Pure as they now are, but only more tried, 

and exclaiming with gladness, 
Father, lo ! I am here, and the children, 

whom thou hast given me ! " 

Weeping he spake in these words ; and 
now at the beck of the old man 

Knee against knee they knitted a wreath 
round the altar's enclosure. 

Kneeling he read then the prayers of the 
consecration, and softly 

With him the children read ; at the close, 
with tremulous accents, 

Asked he the peace of Heaven, a benedic- 
tion upon them. 

Now should have ended his task for the 
day ; the following Sunday 

Was for the young appointed to eat of the 
Lord's holy Supper. 

Sudden, as struck from the clouds, stood 
the Teacher silent and laid his 

Hand on his forehead, and cast his looks 
upward ; while thoughts high and 
holy 

Flew through the midst of his soul, and his 
eyes glanced with wonderful bright- 
ness. 

" On the next Sunday, who knows ! perhaps 
I shall rest in the graveyard ! 

Some one perhaps of yourselves, a lily 
broken untimely, 

Bow down his head to the earth ; why de- 
lay I ? the hour is accomplished. 

Warm is the heart ; — I will ! for to-day 
grows the harvest of heaven. 

What I began accomplish I now ; what 
failing therein is 

I, the old man, will answer to God and the 
reverend father. 

Say to me only, ye children, ye denizens 
new-come in heaven, 

Are ye ready this day to eat of the bread 
of Atonement ? 

What it denoteth, that know ye full well, 
I have told it you often. 

Of the new covenant symbol it is, of Atone- 
ment a token, 

Stablished between earth and heaven. 
Man by his sins and transgressions 

Far has wandered from God, from his es- 
sence. 'T was in the beginning 



Fast by the Tree of Knowledge he fell, and 
it hangs its crown o'er the 

Fall to this day ; in the Thought is the Fall ; 
in the Heart the Atonement. 

Infinite is the fall, — the Atonement infinite 
likewise. 

See ! behind me, as far as the old man re- 
members, and forward, 

Far as Hope in her flight can reach with 
her wearied pinions, 

Sin and Atonement incessant go through the 
lifetime of mortals, 

Sin is brought forth full-grown ; but Atone- 
ment sleeps in our bosoms 

Still as the cradled babe ; and dreams of 
heaven and of angels, 

Cannot awake to sensation ; is like the 
tones in the harp's strings, 

Spirits imprisoned, that wait evermore the 
deliverer's finger. 

Therefore, ye children beloved, descended 
the Prince of Atonement, 

Woke the slumberer from sleep, and she 
stands now with eyes all resplen- 
dent, 

Bright as the vault of the sky, and battles 
with Sin and o'ercomes her. 

Downward to earth He came and, trans- 
figured, thence reascended, 

Not from the heart in like wise, for there 
He still lives in the Spirit, 

Loves and atones evermore. So long as 
Time is, is Atonement. 

Therefore with reverence take this day her 
visible token. 

Tokens are dead if the things live not. 
The light everlasting 

Unto the blind is not, but is born of the 
eye that has vision. 

Neither in bread nor in wine, but in the 
heart that is hallowed 

Lieth forgiveness enshrined ; the intention 
alone of amendment 

Fruits of the earth ennobles to heavenly 
things, and removes all 

Sin and the guerdon of sin. Only Love 
with his arms wide extended, 

Penitence weeping and praying ; the Will 
that is tried, and whose gold flows 

Purified forth from the flames ; in a word, 
mankind by Atonement 

Breaketh Atonement's bread, and drinketh 
Atonement's wine-cup. 

But he who cometh up hither, unworthy, 
with hate in his bosom, 



KING CHRISTIAN 



607 



Scoffing at men and at God, is guilty of 

Christ's blessed body, 
And the Redeemer's blood ! To himself 

he eateth and drinketh 
Death and doom ! And from this, preserve 

us, thou heavenly Father ! 
Are ye ready, ye children, to eat of the 

bread of Atonement ? " 
Thus with emotion he asked, and together 

answered the children, 
" Yes ! " with deep sobs interrupted. Then 

read he the due supplications, 
Read the Form of Communion, and in 

chimed the organ and anthem : 
" O Holy Lamb of God, who takest away 

our transgressions, 
Hear us ! give us thy peace ! have mercy, 

have mercy upon us ! " 
Th' old man, with trembling hand, and 

heavenly pearls on his eyelids, 
Filled now the chalice and paten, and dealt 

round the mystical symbols. 
Oh, then seemed it to me as if God, with 

the broad eye of midday, 
Clearer looked in at the windows, and all 

the trees in the churchyard 
Bowed down their summits of green, and 

the grass on the graves 'gan to 

shiver. 
But in the children (I noted it well ; I 

knew it) there ran a 
Tremor of holy rapture along through 

their ice-cold members. 
Decked like an altar before them, there 

stood the green earth, and above it 
Heaven opened itself, as of old before 

Stephen ; they saw there 
Radiant in glory the Father, and on his 

right hand the Redeemer. 
Under them hear the}^ the clang of harp- 
strings, and angels from gold clouds 
Beckon to them like brothers, and fan with 

their pinions of purple. 

Closed was the Teacher's task, and with 

heaven in their hearts and their 

faces, 
CJp rose the children all, and each bowed 

him, weeping full sorely, 
Downward to kiss that reverend hand, but 

all of them pressed he 
Moved to his bosom, and laid, with a 

prayer, his hands full of blessings, 
Now on the holy breast, and now on the 

innocent tresses. 



KING CHRISTIAN 

(Kong Christian stod ved h0ien mast) 

A NATIONAL SONG OF DENMARK 

Written during a visit to Copenhagen in September, 

1 1835. The poet first heard the air from some strolling 

I musician in a coffee-house, and looking up the words 

by Johannes Evald in his lyrical drama Fiskerne ( The 

Fishermen), Act ii. Sc. v., translated them. 

King Christian stood by the lofty mast 

In mist and smoke ; 
His sword was hammering so fast, 
Through Gothic helm and brain it passed ! 
Then sank each hostile hulk and mast, 

In mist and smoke. 
" Fly ! " shouted they, " fly, he who can ! 
Who braves of Denmark's Christian 

The stroke ? " 

Nils Juel gave heed to the tempest's 
roar, 

Now is the hour ! 
He hoisted his blood-red flag once more, 
And smote upon the foe full sore, 
And shouted loud, through the tempest's 
roar, 

" Now is the hour ! " 
" Fly ! " shouted they, " for shelter fly ! 
Of Denmark's Jnel who can defy 

The power ? " 

North Sea ! a glimpse of Wessel rent 

Thy murky sky ! 
Then champions to thine arms were 

sent ; 
Terror and Death glared where he went ; 
From the waves was heard a wail, that 
rent 

Thy murky sky ! 
From Denmark thunders Tordenskiol : s 
Let each to Heaven commend his soul, 

And fly ! 

Path of the Dane to fame and might ! 

Dark-rolling wave ! 
Receive thy friend, who, scorning flight. 
Goes to meet danger with despite, 
Proudly as thou the tempest's might, 

Dark-rolling wave ! 
And amid pleasures and alarms, 
And war and victory, be thine arms 

My grave ! 



6o8 



TRANSLATIONS 



THE ELECTED KNIGHT 

(Den Udkaarne Ridder) 

This strange and somewhat mystical ballad is from 
Nyerup and Rahbek's Danske Viser J'ra Middelalderen. 
It seems to refer to the first preaching of Christianity 
in the North, and to the institution of Knight-Errantry. 
The three maidens I suppose to be Faith, Hope, and 
Charity. The irregularities of the original have been 
carefully preserved in the translation. 

Sir Oluf he rideth over the plain, 

Full seven miles broad and seven miles 
wide, 
But never, ah never can meet with the 
man 
A tilt with him dare ride. 

He saw under the hillside 

A Knight full well equipped ; 
His steed was black, his helm was barred ; 

He was riding at full speed. 

He wore upon his spurs 

Twelve little golden birds ; 
Anon he spurred his steed with a clang, 

And there sat all the birds and sang. 

He wore upon his mail 

Twelve little golden wheels ; 
Anon in eddies the wild wind blew, 

And round and round the wheels they 
flew. 

He wore before his breast 

A lance that was poised in rest ; 

And it was sharper than diamond-stone, 
It made Sir Oluf's heart to groan. 

He wore upon his helm 

A wreath of ruddy gold ; 
And that gave him the Maidens Three, 

The youngest was fair to behold. 

Sir Oluf questioned the Knight eftsoon 
If he were come from heaven down ; 

" Art thou Christ of Heaven," quoth 
he, 
" So will I yield me unto thee." 

u l am not Christ the Great, 
Thou shalt not yield thee yet ; 

I am an Unknown Knight, 

Three modest Maidens have me be- 
dight." 



" Art thou a Knight elected, 

And have three maidens thee bedight \ 
So shalt thou ride a tilt this day, 

For all the Maidens' honor ! " 

The first tilt they together rode 
They put their steeds to the test ; 

The second tilt they together rode 
They proved their manhood best. 

The third tilt they together rode 
Neither of them would yield ; 

The fourth tilt tbey together rode 
They both fell on the field. 

Now lie the lords upon the plain, 
And their blood runs unto death ; 

Now sit the Maidens in the high tower, 
The youngest sorrows till death. 



CHILDHOOD 

(Da jeg var lille) 

BY JENS IMMANUEL BAGGESEN 

There was a time when I was very small, 
When my whole frame was but an ell in 
height ; 

Sweetly, as I recall it, tears do fall, 
And therefore I recall it with delight 

I sported in my tender mother's arms, 
And rode a-horseback on best father u 
knee ; 
Alike were sorrows, passions and alarms, 
And gold, and Greek, and love, unknown 
to me. 

Then seemed to me this world far less in 
size, 
Likewise it seemed to me less wicked 
far ; 
Like points in heaven, I saw the stars 
arise, 
And longed for wings that I might catch 
a star. 

I saw the moon behind the island fade, 
And thought, " Oh, were 1 on that island 
there, 
I could find out of what the moon is made, 
Find out how large it is, how round, how 
fair ! " 



THE WAVE 



609 



Wondering, I saw God's sun, through 


Then sat they all so calm and still, 


western skies, 


And spake not one rude word. 


Sink in the ocean's golden lap at night, 




And yet upon the morrow early rise, 


But when the maid departed, 


And paint the eastern heaven with crim- 


A Swabian raised his hand, 


son light; 


And cried, all hot and flushed with wine, 




" Long live the Swabian land ! 


And thought of God, the gracious Heavenly 




Father, 


" The greatest kingdom upon earth 


Who made me, and that lovely sun on 


Cannot with that compare; 


high, 


With all the stout and hardy men 


And all those pearls of heaven thick-strung 


And the nut-brown maidens there." 


together, 




Dropped, clustering, from his hand o'er 


11 Ha ! " cried a Saxon, laughing, 


all the sky. 


And dashed his beard with wine; 




" I had rather live in Lapland, 


With childish reverence, my young lips did 


Than that Swabian land of thine ! 


say 
The prayer my pious mother taught to 


" The goodliest land on all this earth, 


me: 


It is the Saxon land ! 


" gentle God ! oh, let me strive alway 


There have I as many maidens 


Still to be wise, and good, and follow 


As fingers on this hand ! " 


thee ! " 






" Hold your tongues ! both Swabian and 


So prayed I for my father and my mother, 


Saxon ! " 


And for my sister, and for all the 


A bold Bohemian cries; 


town; 


" If there 's a heaven upon this earth, 


The king I knew not, and the beggar-bro- 


In Bohemia it lies. 


ther, 




W T ho, bent with age, went, sighing, up 


" There the tailor blows the flute, 


and down. 


And the cobbler blows the horn, 




And the miner blows the bugle, 


They perished, the blithe days of boyhood 


Over mountain gorge and bourn." 


perished, 




And all the gladness, all the peace I 


And then the landlord's daughter 


knew ! 


Up to heaven raised her hand, 


Now have I but their memory, fondly cher- 


And said, "Ye may no more contend,— 


ished; — 


There lies the happiest land ! " 


God ! may I never lose that too ! 






THE WAVE 


FROM THE GERMAN 


(Die Welle) 




BY CHRISTOPH AUGUST TIEDGE 


THE HAPPIEST LAND 






" Whither, thou turbid wave ? 


There sat one day in quiet, 


Whither, with so much haste, 


By an alehouse on the Rhine, 


As if a thief wert thou ? " 


Four hale and hearty fellows, 




And drank the precious wine. 


" I am the Wave of Life, 




Stained with my margin's dust ; 


The landlord's daughter filled their cups, 


From the struggle and the strife 


Around the rustic board; 


Of the narrow stream I fly 



6io 



TRANSLATIONS 



To the Sea's immensity, 
To wash from me the slime 
Of the muddy banks of Time.' 



THE DEAD 

BY ERNST STOCKMANN 

How they so softly rest, 
All they the holy ones, 
Unto whose dwelling-place 
Now doth my soul draw near ! 
How they so softly rest, 
All in their silent graves, 
Deep to corruption 
S-lowly down-sinking ! 

And they no longer 1 weep, 
Here, where complaint is still ! 
And they no longer feel, 
Here, where all gladness flies S 
And by the cypresses 
Softly o'ershadowed, 
Until the Angel 
Calls them, they slumber ! 



VHE BIRD AND THE SHIP 

(SCHIFF UND VOGEL) 
BY WILHELM MULLER 

'j'Tue rivers rush into the sea, 

By castle and town they go ; 
'.The winds behind them merrily 

Their noisy trumpets blow. 

'''The clouds are passing far and high, 

We little birds in them play ; 
And everything, that can sing and fly, 

Goes with us, and far away. 

i( I greet thee, bonny boat ! Whither, or 
whence, 
With thy fluttering golden band ? " — 
" I greet thee, little bird ! To the wide 
sea 
I haste from the narrow land. 

" Full and swollen is every sail ; 

I see no longer a hill, 
I have trusted all to the sounding gale, 

And it will not let me stand still. 



" And wilt thou, little bird, go with us ? 

Thou mayest stand on the mainmast tali 
For full to sinking is my house 

With merry companions all." — 

" I need not and seek not company, 
Bonny boat, I can sing all alone ; 

For the mainmast tall too heavy am I, 
Bonny boat, I have wings of my own. 

" High over the sails, high over the mast, 
Who shall gainsay these joys ? 

When thy merry companions are still, ati 
last, 
Thou shalt hear the sound of my voice. 

" Who neither may rest, nor listen may, 

God bless them every one ! 
I dart away, in the bright blue day, 

And the golden fields of the sun. 

" Thus do I sing my weary song, 
Wherever the four winds blow ; 

And this same song, my whole life long, 
Neither Poet nor Printer may know." 



WHITHER? 

(WOHIN ?) 
BY WILHELM MULLER 

I heard a brooklet gushing 
From its rocky fountain near, 

Down into the valley rushing, 
So fresh and wondrous clear. 

I know not what came o'er me, 
Nor who the counsel gave ; 

But I must hasten downward, 
All with my pilgrim-stave ; 

Downward, and ever farther, 
And ever the brook beside ; 

And ever fresher murmured, 
And ever clearer, the tide. 

Is this the way I was going ? 

Whither, O brooklet, say ! 
Thou hast, with thy soft murmur, 

Murmured my senses away. 

What do I say of a murmur ? 
That can no murmur be : 



THE CASTLE 


BY THE SEA 6i< 


T is the water-nymphs, that are singing 
Their roundelays under me. 


first beheld thee. The sun of life will set ere I forgei 


thee ! Surely it was a scene like this that inspired fchf 
soul of the Swiss poet, in his Song of the Bell." 


Let them sing, my friend, let them murmur, 


Bell ! thou soundest merrily, 


And wander merrily near ; 


When the bridal party 


The wheels of a mill are going 


To the church doth hie ! 


In every brooklet clear. 


Bell ! thou soundest solemnly, 




When, on Sabbath morning, 




Fields deserted lie ! 


BEWARE ! 


Bell ! thou soundest merrily ; 




Tellest thou at evening, 


(Hut du dich!) 


Bed-time draweth nigh ! 




Bell ! thou soundest mournfully, 


I KNOW a maiden fair to see, 


Tellest thou the bitter 


Take care ! 


Parting hath gone by ! 


She can both false and friendly be, 




Beware ! Beware ! 


Say ! how canst thou mourn ? 


Trust her not, 


How canst thou rejoice ? 


She is fooling thee ! 


Thou art but metal dull ! 




And yet all our sorrowings, 


She has two eyes, so soft and brown, 


And all our rejoicings, 


Take care ! 


Thou dost feel them all ! 


She gives a side-glance and looks down, 




Beware ! Beware ! 


God hath wonders many, 


Trust her not, 


Which we cannot fathom, 


She is fooling thee ! 


Placed within thy form ! 




When the heart is sinking, 


And she has hair of a golden hue, 


Thou alone canst raise it, 


Take care ! 


Trembling in the storm 1 


And what she says, it is not true, 




Beware ! Beware ! 




Trust her not, 


THE CASTLE BY THE SEA 


She is fooling thee ! 






(Das Schloss am Meere) 


She has a bosom as white as snow, 




Take care ! 


BY JOHANN LUDWIG UHLAND 


She knows how much it is best to show, 




Beware ! Beware ! 


" Hast thou seen that lordly castle, 


Trust her not, 


That Castle by the Sea ? 


She is fooling thee ! 


Golden and red above it 




The clouds float gorgeously. 


She gives thee a garland woven fair, 




Take care ! 


" And fain it would stoop downward 


It is a fool's-cap for thee to wear, 


To the mirrored wave below ; 


Beware ! Beware ! 


And fain it would soar upward 


Trust her not, 


In the evening's crimson glow * 


She is fooling thee ! 






" Well have I seen that castle, 




That Castle by the Sea, 




And the moon above it standing, 


SONG OF THE BELL 


And the mist rise solemnly." 


First published in Hyperion, Book III. chapter iii. 
*he scene of the chapter is laid at Interlachen. " The 


" The winds and the waves of oceaT 


evening sun was setting," writes the author, " when I 


Had they a merry chime ? 



612 



TRANSLATIONS 



Didst thou hear, from those lofty chambers 
The harp and the minstrel's rhyme ? " 

" The winds and the waves of ocean, 

They rested quietly, 
But I heard on the gale a sound of wail, 

And tears came to mine eye." 

* And sawest thou on the turrets 
The King and his royal bride ? 

And the wave of their crimson mantles ? 
And the golden crown of pride ? 

* Led they not forth, in rapture, 

A beauteous maiden there ? 
Kesplendent as the morning sun, 
Beaming with golden hair ? " 

11 Well saw I the ancient parents, 

Without the crown of pride ; 
They were moving slow, in weeds of woe, 

No maiden was by their side ! " 



THE BLACK KNIGHT 

(Der Schwarze Ritter) 

BY JOHANN LUDWIG UHLAND 

*T WAS Pentecost, the Feast of Gladness, 
When woods and fields put off all sadness, 

Thus began the King and spake : 
" So from the halls 
Of ancient Hofburg's walls, 

A luxuriant Spring shall break." 

Drums and trumpets echo loudly, 
Wave the crimson banners proudly, 

From balcony the King looked on ; 
In the play of spears, 
Fell all the cavaliers, 

Before the monarch's stalwart son. 

To the barrier of the fight 
Rode at last a sable Knight. 

" Sir Knight ! your name and scutcheon, 
say!" 
" Should I speak it here, 
Ye would stand aghast with fear ; 

I am a Prince of mighty sway ! " 

When he rode into the lists, 
The arch of heaven grew black with mists, 
And the castle 'gan to rock ; 



At the first blow, 
Fell the youth from saddle-bow, 
Hardly rises from the shock. 

Pipe and viol call the dances, 
Torch-light through the high halls glances 

Waves a mighty shadow in ; 
With manner bland 
Doth ask the maiden's hand, 

Doth with her the dance begin. 

Danced in sable iron sark, 
Danced a measure weird and dark, 

Coldly clasped her limbs around ; 
From breast and hair 
Down fall from her the fair 

Flowerets, faded, to the ground. 

To the sumptuous banquet came 
Every Knight and every Dame ; 

'Twixt son and daughter all distraught, 
With mournful mind 
The ancient King reclined, 

Gazed at them in silent thought. 

Pale the children both did look, 
But the guest a beaker took : 

"Golden wine will make you whole ! " 
The children drank, 
Gave many a courteous thank : 

" Oh, that draught was very cool ! " 

Each the father's breast embraces, 
Son and daughter ; and their faces 

Colorless grow utterly ; 
Whichever way 
Looks the fear-struck father gray, 

He beholds his children die. 

" Woe ! the blessed children both 
Takest thou in the joy of youth ; 

Take me, too, the joyless father ! " 
Spake the grim Guest, 
From his hollow, cavernous breast : 

" Roses in the spring I gather ! " 



SONG OF THE SILENT LAND 

(Lied : Ins stille Land) 

BY JOHANN GAUDENZ VON SALIS-SEEWIS 

Into the Silent Land ! 

Ah ! who shall lead us thither ? 



THE TWO LOCKS OF HAIR 



613 



Clouds in the evening sky more darkly 

gather, 
And shattered wrecks lie thicker on the 

strand. 
Who leads us with a gentle hand 
Thither, oh, thither, 
Into the Silent Land ? 

Into the Silent Land ! 

To you, ye boundless regions 

Of all perfection ! Tender morning-visions 

Of beauteous souls ! The Future's pledge 

and band ! 
Who in Life's battle firm doth stand, 
Shall bear Hope's tender blossoms 
Into the Silent Land ! 

O Laud ! O Land ! 

For all the broken-hearted 

The mildest herald by our fate allotted, 

Beckons, and with inverted torch doth stand 

To lead us with a gentle hand 

To the land of the great Departed, 

Into the Silent Land ! 



THE LUCK OF EDENHALL 

(Das Gluck von Edenhall) 

BY JOHANN LUDWIG UHLAXD 

Of Edenhall, the youthful Lord 

Bids sound the festal trumpet's call ; 

He rises at the banquet board, 

And cries, 'mid the drunken revellers all, 

" Now bring me the Luck of Edenhall ! " 

The butler hears the words with pain, 
The house's oldest seneschal, 
Takes slow from its silken cloth again 
The drinking-glass of crystal tall ; 
They call it the Luck of Edenhall. 

Then said the Lord : " This glass to praise, 

Fill with red wine from Portugal ! " 

The graybeard with trembling hand obeys ; 

A purple light shines over all, 

It beams from the Luck of Edenhall. 

Then speaks the Lord, and waves it light : 
" This glass of flashing crystal tall 
Gave to my sires the Fountain-Sprite ; 
She wrote in it, If this glass doth fall. 
Farewell then, O Luck of Edenhall 1 



" 'T was right a goblet the Fate should be 
Of the joyous race of Edenhall ! 
Deep draughts drink we right willingly ; 
And willingly ring, with merry call, 
Kling ! klang ! to the Luck of Edenhall I M 

First rings it deep, and full, and mild, 
Like to the song of a nightingale ; 
Then like the roar of a torrent wild ; 
Then mutters at last like the thunder's fall, 
The glorious Luck of Edenhall. 

" For its keeper takes a race of might, 
The fragile goblet of crystal tall ; 
It has lasted longer than is right ; 
Kling ! klang ! — with a harder blow thao 

all 
Will I try the Luck of Edenhall ! " 

As the goblet ringing flies apart, 
Suddenly cracks the vaulted hall ; 
And through the rift, the wild flames start ; 
The guests in dust are scattered all, 
With the breaking Luck of Edenhall ! 

In storms the foe, with fire and sword ; 
He in the night had scaled the wall, 
Slain by the sword lies the youthful Lord, 
But holds in his hand the crystal tall, 
The shattered Luck of Edenhall. 

On the morrow the butler gropes alone, 
The graybeard in the desert hall. 
He seeks his Lord's burnt skeleton, 
He seeks in the dismal ruin's fall 
The shards of the Luck of Edenhall. 

"The stone wall," saith he, "doth fall 

aside, 
Down must the stately columns fall ; 
Glass is this earth's Luck and Pride ; 
In atoms shall fall this earthly ball 
One day like the Luck of Edenhall ! " 



THE TWO LOCKS OF HAIR 

(Der Junggesell) 

BY GUSTAV PFIZER 

A YOUTH, light-hearted and content, 
I wander through the world ; 

Here, Arab-like, is pitched my tent 
And straight again is furled. 



614 



TRANSLATIONS 



Yet oft I dream, that once a wife 
Close in my heart was locked, 

And in the sweet repose of life 
A blessed child I rocked. 

I wake ! Away that dream, - 

Too long did it remain ! 
So long, that both by night and day 

It ever comes again. 

The end lies ever in my thought ; 

To a grave so cold and deep 
The mother beautiful was brought ; 

Then dropt the child asleep. 

But now the dream is wholly o'er, 

I bathe mine eyes and see ; 
And wander through the world on 
more, 

A youth so light and free. 

Two locks — and they are wondrous fair ■ 

Left me that vision mild ; 
The brown is from the mother's hair, 

The blond is from the child. 

And when I see that lock of gold. 
Pale grows the evening-red ; 

And when the dark lock I behold, 
I wish that I were dead. 



THE HEMLOCK TREE 



how 



O hemlock tree ! O hemlock tree ! 
faithful are thy branches ! 
Green not alone in summer time, 
But in the winter's frost and rime ! 
O hemlock tree ! O hemlock tree ! how 
faithful are thy branches ! 

O maiden fair ! O maiden fair ! how faith- 
less is thy bosom ! 
To love me in prosperity, 
And leave me in adversity ! 
maiden fair ! O maiden fair ! hew faith- 
less is thy bosom ! 

The nightingale the nightingale, thou tak'st 
for thine example ! 
So long as summer laughs she sings, 
But in the autumn spreads her wings. 
The nightingale, the nightingale, thou tak'st 
for thine example ! 



The meadow brook, the meadow brook, is 
mirror of thy falsehood ! 
It flows so long as falls the rain, 
In drought its springs soon dry again. 
The meadow brook, the meadow brook, is 
mirror of thy falsehood ! 



ANNIE OF THARAW 

(Anke von Tharau) 

BY SIMON DACH 

Annie of Tharaw, my true love of old, 
She is my life, and my goods, and my gold, 

Annie of Tharaw her heart once again 
To me has surrendered in joy and in pain. 

Annie of Tharaw, my riches, my good, 
Thou, O my soul, my flesh, and my blood ! 

Then come the wild weather, come sleet or 

come snow, 
We will stand by each other, however it 

blow. 

Oppression, and sickness, and sorrow, and 

pain 
Shall be to our true love as links to the chain. 

As the palm-tree standeth so straight and 

so tall, 
The more the hail beats, and the more the 

rains fall, — 

So love in our hearts shall grow mighty 

and strong, 
Through crosses, through sorrows, through 

manifold wrong. 

Shouldst thou be torn from me to wandei- 

alone 
In a desolate land where the sun is scarce 

known, — 

Through forests I '11 follow, and where the 

sea flows, 
Through ice, and through iron, through 

armies of foes. 

Annie of Tharaw, my light and my sun, 
The threads of our two lives are woven ir 



THE SEA HATH ITS PEARLS 



615 



Whate'er I have bidden thee thou hast 

obeyed, 
Whatever forbidden thou hast not gainsaid. 

How in the turmoil of life can love stand, 
Where there is not one heart, and one 
mouth, and one hand ? 

Some seek for dissension, and trouble, and 

strife ; 
Like a dog and a cat live such man and 

wife. 

Annie of Tharaw, such is not our love ; 
Thou art my lambkin, my chick, and my 
dove. 

Wliate'er my desire is, in thine may be 

seen ; 
I am king of the household, and thou art 

its queen. 

It is this, O my Annie, my heart's sweetest 

rest, 
That makes of us twain but one soul in 

one breast. 

This turns to a heaven the hut where we 

dwell ; 
While wrangling soon changes a home to a 

hell. 



THE STATUE OVER THE CA- 
THEDRAL DOOR 

(Das Steinbild am Dome) 

BY JULIUS MOSEN 

Forms of saints and kings are standing 

The cathedral door above ; 
Yet I saw but one among them 

Who hath soothed my soul with love. 

In his mantle, — wound about him, 
As their robes the sowers wind, — 

Bore he swallows and their fledglings, 
Flowers and weeds of every kind. 

And so stands he calm and childlike, 
High in wind and tempest wild ; 

Oh, were I like him exalted, 
I would be like him a child ! 



And my songs, — green leaves and blos« 
soms, — 

To the doors of heaven would bear, 
Calling even in storm and tempest, 

Round me still these birds of air. 



THE LEGEND OF THE CROSS- 
BILL 

(Der Kreuzschnabel, No- 3) 

BY JULIUS MOSEN 

On the cross the dying Saviour 
Heavenward lifts his eyelids calm, 

Feels, but scarcely feels, a trembling 
In his pierced and bleeding palm. 

And by all the world forsaken, 
Sees He how with zealous care 

At the ruthless nail of iron 
A little bird is striving there. 



With its beak it doth not cease, 
From the cross 't would free the Savioui 
Its Creator's Son release. 

And the Saviour speaks in mildness : 
" Blest be thou of all the good ! 

Bear, as token of this moment, 
Marks of blood and holy rood ! " 

And that bird is called the crossbill ; 

Covered all with blood so clear, 
In the groves of pine it singeth 

Songs, like legends, strange to hear. 



THE SEA HATH ITS PEARLS 

BY HEINRICH HEINE 

The sea hath its pearls, 
The heaven hath its stars ; 

But my heart, my heart, 
My heart hath its love. 

Great are the sea and the heaven, 
Yet greater is my heart ; 

And fairer than pearls and stars 
Flashes and beams my love. 



6i6 



TRANSLATIONS 



Thou little, youthful maiden, 
Come unto my great heart ; 

My heart, and the sea, and the heaven 
Are melting away with love ! 



POETIC APHORISMS 

FROM THE SINNGEDICHTE OF FRIE- 
DRICH VON LOGAU 

MONEY 

Wheeeunto is money good ? 
Who has it not wants hardihood, 
Who has it has much trouble and care, 
Who once has had it has despair. 

THE BEST MEDICINES 

Joy and Temperance and Repose 
Slam the door on the doctor's nose. 

SIN 

Man-like is it to fall into sin, 
Fiend-like is it to dwell therein, 
Christ-like is it for sin to grieve, 
God-like is it all sin to leave. 

POVERTY AND BLINDNESS 

A blind man is a poor man, and blind a 

poor man is ; 
For the former seeth no man, and the latter 

no man sees. 

LAW OF LIFE 
Live I, so live I, 
To my Lord heartily, 
To my Prince faithfully, 
To my Neighbor honestly, 
Die I, so die I. 

CREEDS 

Lutheran, Popish, Calvinistic, all these 
creeds and doctrines three 

Extant are ; but still the doubt is, where 
Christianity may be. 

THE RESTLESS HEART 

A. mill-stone and the human heart are 

driven ever round ; 
If they have nothing else to grind, they 

must themselves be ground. 



CHRISTIAN LOVE 

Whilom Love was like a fire, and warmtfc 

and comfort it bespoke ; 
But, alas ! it now is quenched, and only 

bites us, like the smoke. 

ART AND TACT 

Intelligence and courtesy not always ase 

combined ; 
Often in a wooden house a golden room we 

find. 

RETRIBUTION 
Though the mills of God grind slowly, yet 

they grind exceeding small ; 
Though with patience he stands waiting, 

with exactness grinds he all. 

TRUTH 

When by night the frogs are croaking, 

kindle but a torch's fire, 
Ha ! how soon they all are silent ! Thus 

Truth silences the liar. 



RHYMES 



If 



perhaps these rhymes of mine should 

sound not well in strangers' ears, 
They have only to bethink them that it 

happens so with theirs ; 
For so long as words, like mortals, call a 

fatherland their own, 
They will be most highly valued where they 

are best and longest known. 

SILENT LOVE 

Who love would seek, 

Let him love evermore 
And seldom speak ; 

For in love's domain 

Silence must reign ; 
Or it brings the heart 

Smart 
And pain. 

BLESSED ARE THE DEAD 

(Selig sind, die in dem Herrn sterben) 
BY SIMON DACH 

Oh, how blest are ye whose toils are 
ended ! 

Who, through death, have unto God as- 
cended ! 



REMORSE 



617 



Ye have arisen 

From the cares which keep us still in 
prison. 

We are still as in a dungeon living, 

Still oppressed with sorrow and misgiv- 
ing ; 

Our undertakings 

Are but toils, and troubles, and heart- 
breakings. 

Ye, meanwhile, are in your chambers sleep- 

Quiet, and set free from all our weeping ; 

No cross nor trial 

Hinders your enjoyments with denial. 

Christ has wiped away your tears for 

ever ; 
Ye have that for which we still endeavor. 
To you are chanted 
Songs which yet no mortal ear have haunted. 

Ah ! who would not, then, depart with glad- 
ness, 
To inherit heaven for earthly sadness ? 
Who here would languish 
Longer in bewailing and in anguish ? 

Come, O Christ, and loose the chains that 

bind us ! 
Lead us forth, and cast this world behind 

us ! 
With thee, the Anointed, 
Finds the soul its joy and rest appointed. 



WANDERER'S NIGHT-SONGS 

(Wandrers Nachtlied and Ein Gleiches) 
BY JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE 



Thou that from the heavens art, 
Every pain and sorrow stillest, 
And the doubly wretched heart 
Doubly with refreshment fillest, 
I am weary with contending ! 
Why this rapture and unrest ? 
Peace descending 
Come, ah, come into my breast ! 



II 

O'er all the hill-tops 

Is quiet now, 

In all the tree-tops 

Hearest thou 

Hardly a breath ; 

The birds are asleep in the trees 1 

Wait ; soon like these 

Thou too shalt rest. 



REMORSE 

(MUT AND UNMUT) 
BY AUGUST VON PLATEN 

How I started up in the night, in the night, 
Drawn on without rest or reprieval ! 

The streets, with their watchmen, were lost 
to my sight, 
As I wandered so light 
In the night, in the night, 

Through the gate with the arch medieval. 

The mill-brook rushed from the rocky 
height, 
I leaned o'er the bridge in my yearn- 
ing ; 
Deep under me watched I the waves in 
their flight, 
As they glided so light 
In the night, in the night, 
Yet backward not one was returning. 

O'erhead were revolving, so countless and 
bright, 
The stars in melodious existence ; 
And with them the moon, more serenely 
bedight ; 
They sparkled so light 
In the night, in the night, 
Through the magical, measureless distance. 

And upward I gazed in the night, in the 
night, 
And again on the waves in their fleeting ; 
Ah woe ! thou hast wasted thy days in 
delight, 
Now silence thou light, 
In the night, in the night, 
The remorse in thy heart that is beating. 



6i8 



TRANSLATIONS 



FORSAKEN 

Something the heart must have to cherish, 
Must love and joy and sorrow learn, 

Something with passion clasp, or perish, 
And in itself to ashes burn. 

So to this child my heart is clinging, 
And its frank eyes, with look intense, 

Me from a world of sin are bringing 
Back to a world of innocence. 

Disdain must thou endure forever ; 

Strong may thy heart in danger be ! 
Thou shalt not fail ! but ah, be never 

False as thy father was to me. 

Never will I forsake thee, faithless, 
And thou thy mother ne'er forsake, 

Until her lips are white and breathless, 
Until in death her eyes shall break. 



ALLAH 



BY SIEGFRIED AUGUST MAHLMANN 

Allah gives light in darkness, 

Allah gives rest in pain, 
Cheeks that are white with weeping 

Allah paints red again. 

The flowers and the blossoms wither, 
Years vanish with flying feet ; 

But my heart will live on forever, 
That here in sadness beat. 

Gladly to Allah's dwelling 
Yonder would I take flight ; 

There will the darkness vanish, 
There will my eyes have sight. 



FROM THE ANGLO-SAXON 
THE GRAVE 

For thee was a house built 
Ere thou wast born, 
For thee was a mould meant 
Ere thou of mother earnest. 
But it is not made ready, 
Nor its depth measured. 



Nor is it seen 
How long it shall be. 
Now I bring thee 
Where thou shalt be ; 
Now I shall measure thee, 
And the mould afterwards. 

Thy house is not 
Highly timbered, 
It is unhigh and low ; 
When thou art therein, 
The heel-ways are low, 
The side-ways unhigh. 
The roof is built 
Thy breast full nigh, 
So thou shalt in mould 
Dwell full cold, 
Dimly and dark. 

Doorless is that house, 
And dark it is within ; 
There thou art fast detained 
And Death hath the key. 
Loathsome is that earth-house[ 
And grim within to dwell. 
There thou shalt dwell, 
And worms shall divide thee. 

Thus thou art laid, 
And leavest thy friends ; 
Thou hast no friend, 
Who will come to thee, 
Who will ever see 
How that house pleaseth thee 5 
Who will ever open 
The door for thee, 
And descend after thee ; 
For soon thou art loathsome 
And hateful to see. 



BEOWULF'S EXPEDITION T€ 
HEORT 

Thus then, much care-worn, 

The son of Healfden 

Sorrowed evermore, 

Nor might the prudent hero 

His woes avert. 

The war was too hard, 

Too loath and longsome, 

That on the people came, 

Dire wrath and grim, 

Of night-woes the worst. 



BEOWULF'S EXPEDITION TO HEORT 



619 



This from home heard 
Higelac's Thane, 
Good among the Goths, 
Grendel's deeds. 
He was of mankind 
In might the strongest, 
At that day 
Of this life, 
Noble and stalwart. 
He bade him a sea-ship, 
A goodly one, prepare. 
Quoth he, the war-king, 
Over the swan's road, 
Seek he would 
The mighty monarch, 
Since he wanted men. 
For him that journey 
His prudent fellows 
Straight made ready, 
Those that loved him. 
They excited their souls, 
The omen they beheld. 
Had the good-man 
Of the Gothic people 
Champions chosen, 
Of those that keenest 
He might find, 
Some fifteen men. 
The sea-wood sought he. 
The warrior showed, 
Sea-crafty man ! 
The land-marks, 
And first went forth. 
The ship was on the waves, 
Boat under the cliffs. 
The barons ready 
To the prow mounted. 
The streams they whirled 
The sea against the sands. 
The chieftains bore 
On the naked breast 
Bright ornaments, 
War-gear, Goth-like. 
The men shoved off, 
Men on their willing way, 
The bounden wood. 

Then went over the sea- 
Hurried by the wind, 
The ship with foamy neck, 
Most like a sea-fowl, 
Till about one hour 
Of the second day 
The curved prow 
Had passed onward 



So that the sailors 

The land saw, 

The shore-cliffs shining, 

Mountains steep, 

And broad sea-noses. 

Then was the sea-sailing 

Of the Earl at an end. 
Then up speedily 

The Weather people 

On the land went, 

The sea-bark moored, 

Their mail-sarks shook, 

Their war-weeds. 

God thanked they, 

That to them the sea-journey 

Easy had been. 

Then from the wall beheld 

The warden of the Scyldings, 

He who the sea-cliffs 

Had in his keeping, 

Bear o'er the balks 
The bright shields, 

The war-weapons speedily. 

Him the doubt disturbed 
In his mind's thought, 
What these men might be. 
Went then to the shore, 
On his steed riding, 
The Thane of Hrothgar. 
Before the host he shook 
His warden's-staff in hand, 
In measured words demanded 

" What men are ye 
War-gear wearing, 
Host in harness, 
Who thus the brown keel 
Over the water-street 
Leading come 
Hither over the sea ? 
I these boundaries 
As shore-warden hold, 
That in the Land of the Dane? 
Nothing loathsome 
With a ship-crew 
Scathe us might. . . . 
Ne'er saw I mightier 
Earl upon earth 
Than is your own, 
Hero in harness. 
Not seldom this warrior 
Is in weapons distinguished ; 
Never his beauty belies him. 
His peerless countenance ! 
Now would I fain 



6*o 



TRANSLATIONS 



Your origin know, 

Ere ye forth 

As false spies 

Into the Land of the Danes 

Farther fare. 

Now, ye dwellers afar-off ! 

Ye sailors of the sea .' 

Listen to my 

One-fold thought. 

Quickest is best 

To make known 

Whence your coming may be. 



THE SOUL'S COMPLAINT 
AGAINST THE BODY 

FROM THE ANGLO-SAXON 

Much it behoveth 
Each one of mortals, 
That he his soul's journey 
In himself ponder, 
How deep it may be. 
When Death cometh, 
The bonds he breaketh 
By which were united 
The soul and the body. 



Long it is thenceforth 
Ere the soul taketh 






From God himself 
Its woe or its weal ; 
As in the world erst, 
Even in its earth-vessel, 
It wrought before. 

The soul shall come 
Wailing with loud voice, 
After a sennight, 
The soul, to find 
The body 

That it erst dwelt in ; — 
Three hundred winters, 
Unless ere that worketh 
The Eternal Lord, 
The Almighty God, 
The end of the world. 



Crieth then, so care-worn, 

With cold utterance, 

And speaketh grimly, 

The ghost to the dust : 

" Dry dust ! thou dreary one ! 

How little didst thou labor for m» \ 

In the foulness of earth 

Thou all wearest away 

Like to the loam ! 

Little didst thou think 

How thy soul's journey 

Would be thereafter, 

When from the body 

It should be led forth." 



SPRING 



^21 



FROM THE FRENCH 



SONG 

FROM THE PARADISE OF LOVE 

Hark ! hark ! 

Pretty lark i 
Little heedest thou my pain ! 
But if to these longing arms 
Pitying Love would yield the charms 

Of the fair 

With smiling air, 
Blithe would beat my heart again. 

Hark ! hark ! 

Pretty lark ! 
Little heedest thou my pain ! 
Love may force me still to bear, 
While he lists, consuming care; 

But in anguish 

Though I languish, 
Faithful shall my heart remain. 

Hark ! hark ! 

Pretty lark ! 
Little heedest thou my pain ! 
Then cease, Love, to torment me so; 
But rather than all thoughts forego 

Of the fair 

With flaxen hair, 
Give me back her frowns again. 

Hark ! hark ! 
Pretty lark ! 
Little heedest thou my pain ! 



SONG 

Given in The Trouveres, a chapter of Outre-Mer, as 
an example of the lyrics of the early poets of the 
North of France. 

And whither goest thou, gentle sigh, 

Breathed so softly in my ear ? 

Say, dost thou bear his fate severe 
To Love's poor martyr doomed to die ? 
Come, tell me quickly, — do not lie; 

What secret message bring'st thou here ? 
And whither goest thou, gentle sigh, 

Breathed so softly in my ear ? 
May Heaven conduct thee to thy will, 

And safely speed thee on thy way; 

This only I would humbly pray, — 



Pierce deep, — but oh ! forbear to kill. 
And whither goest thou, gentle si<r>*- 
Breathed so softly in my ear ? 



THE RETURN OF SPRING 

(Renouveau) 

BY CHARLES D'ORLEANS 

Now Time throws off his cloak again 
Of ermined frost, and wind, and rain, 
And clothes him in the embroidery 
Of glittering sun and clear blue sky. 
With beast and bird the forest rings, 
Each in his jargon cries or sings; 
And Time throws off his cloak again 
Of ermined frost, and wind, and rain. 

River, and fount, and tink^ng brook 

Wear in their dainty livery 

Drops of silver jewelry; 

In new-made suit they merry look; 

And Time throws off his cloak again 

Of ermined frost, and wind, and rain. 



SPRING 
BY CHARLES D'ORLEANS 

Gentle Spring ! in sunshine clad, 
Well dost thou thy power display ! 

For Winter maketh the light heart sad, 
And thou, thou makest the sad heart gay. 

He sees thee, and calls to his gloomy train, 

The sleet, and the snow, and the wind, and 
the rain; 

And they shrink away, and they flee in fear, 
When thy inerry step draws near. 

Winter giveth the fields and the trees, so 
old, 
Their beards of icicles and snow; 
And the rain, it raineth so fast and cold, 
We must cower over the embers low; 
And, snugly housed from the wind and 

weather, 
Mope like birds that are changing feather. 
But the storm retires, and the sky grows 
clear, 
When thy merry step draws near. 



622 



TRANSLATIONS 



Winter maketh the sun in the gloomy sky 
Wrap him round, with a mantle of cloud ; 

But, Heaven be praised, thy step is nigh ; 
Thou tearest away the mournful shroud, 

And the earth looks bright, and Winter 
surly, 

Who has toiled for naught both late and 
early, 

Is banished afar by the new-born year, 
When thy merry step draws near. 



THE CHILD ASLEEP 
(Verslets a mon premier ne) 
BY CLOTILDE DE SURVILLE 

Sweet babe ! true portrait of thy father's 
face, 
Sleep on the bosom that thy lips have 
pressed ! 
Sleep, little one ; and closely, gently place 
Thy drowsy eyelid on thy mother's 
breast. 

Upon that tender eye, my little friend, 
Soft sleep shall come, that cometh not to 
me ! 
I watch to see thee, nourish thee, defend ; 
'T is sweet to watch for thee, alone for 
thee! 

His arms fall down ; sleep sits upon his 
brow ; 
His eye is closed ; he sleeps, nor dreams 
of harm. 
Wore not his cheek the apple's ruddy glow, 
Would you not say he slept on Death's 
cold arm ? 

Awake, my boy ! I tremble with affright ! 
Awake, and chase this fatal thought ! Un- 
close 
Thine eye but for one moment on the 
light ! 
Even at the price of thine, give me re- 
pose ! 

Sweet error ! he but slept, I breathe again ; 

Come, gentle dreams, the hour of sleep 

beguile ! 

Oh, when shall he, for whom I sigh in vain, 

Beside me watch to see thy waking 

smile ? 



DEATH OF ARCHBISHOP 
TURPIN 

FROM THE CHANSON DE ROLAND 






The Archbishop, whom God loved in high 
degree, 

Beheld his wounds all bleeding fresh and 
free ; 

And then his cheek more ghastly grew and 
wan, 

And a faint shudder through his members 
ran. 

Upon the battle-field his knee was bent ; 

Brave Roland saw, and to his succor went, 

Straightway his helmet from his brow un- 
laced, 

And tore the shining hauberk from his 
breast. 

Then raising in his arms the man of God, 

Gently he laid him on the verdant sod. 

" Rest, Sire," he cried, — " for rest thy suf- 
fering needs." 

The priest replied, " Think but of warlike 
deeds ! 

The field is ours ; well may we boast this 
strife ! 

But death steals on, — there is no hope of 
life ; 

In paradise, where Almoners live again, 

There are our couches spread, there shall 
we rest from pain." 

Sore Roland grieved ; nor marvel I, alas ! 
That thrice he swooned upon the thick green 

grass. 
When he revived, with a loud voice cried he, 
" O Heavenly Father ! Holy Saint Marie S 
Why lingers death to lay me in my grave ! 
Beloved France ! how have the good and 

brave 
Been torn from thee, and left thee weak 

and poor ! " 
Then thoughts of Aude, his lady-love, came 

o'er 
His spirit, and he whispered soft and slow, 
" My gentle friend ! — what parting full of 

woe ! 
Never so true a liegeman shalt thou see ; — 
Whate'er my fate, Christ's benisoii on thee ! 
Christ, who did save from realms of woe 

beneath, 
The Hebrew Prophets from the second 

death." 



THE BLIND GIRL OF CASTfiL CUILLE 



623 



Then to the Paladins, whom well lie knew, 
He went, and one by one unaided drew 
To Turpin's side, well skilled in ghostly 

lore ; — 
No heart had he to smile, but, weeping- 
sore, 
He blessed them in God's name, with faith 

that he 
Would soon vouchsafe to them a glad 
eternity. 

The Archbishop, then, on whom God's 

benison rest, 
Exhausted, bowed his head upon his 

breast ; — 
His mouth was full of dust and clotted 

gore, 
And many a wound his swollen visage bore. 
Slow beats his heart, his panting bosom 

heaves, 
Death comes apace, — no hope of cure re- 
lieves. 
Towards heaven he raised his dying hands 

and prayed 
That God, who for our sins was mortal 

made, 
Born of the Virgin, scorned and crucified, 
In paradise would place him by his side. 

Then Turpin died in service of Charlon, 
In battle great and eke great orison ; — 
'Gainst Pagan host alway strong champion ; 
God grant to him his holy benison. 



THE BLIND GIRL OF CASTEL 
CUILLE 

BY JACQUES JASMIN 

Only the Lowland tongue of Scotland might 
Rehearse this little tragedy aright ; 
Let me attempt it with an English quill ; 
And take, O Reader, for the deed the will. 

On the 30th of September, 1849, Mr. Longfellow 
wrote in his diary : "I think I shall translate Jasmin's 
Blind Girl o/Castel Cuille,— a beautiful poem, unknown 
to English ears and hearts, but well deserving to be 
made known." 



At the foot of the mountain height 
Where is perched Castel Cuille, 
When the apple, the plum, and the almond 
tree 
In the plain below were growing white, 



This is the song one might perceive 
On a Wednesday morn of St. Joseph's 
Eve : 

The roads should blossom, the roads should bloom, 
So fair a bride shall leave her home ! 
Should blossom and bloom with garlands gay, 
So fair a bride shall pass to-day ! 

This old Te Deum, rustic rites attending, 
Seemed from the clouds descending ; 
When lo ! a merry company 
Of rosy village girls, clean as the eye, 

Each one with her attendant swain, 
Came to the cliff, all singing the same 

strain ; 
Resembling there, so near unto the sky, 
Rejoicing angels, that kind heaven had 

sent 
For their delight and our encouragement. 
Together blending, 
And soon descending 
The narrow sweep 
Of the hillside steep, 
They wind aslant 
Towards Saint Amant, 
Through leafy alleys 
Of verdurous valleys 
With merry sallies, 
Singing their chant : 

The roads should blossom, the roads should bloom, 
So fair a bride shall leave her home! 
Shoidd blossom and bloom with garlands gay. 
So fair a bride shall pass to-day ! 

It is Baptiste, and his affianced maiden, 
With garlands for the bridal laden ! 

The sky was blue ; without one cloud of 
gloom, 
The sun of March was shining brightly, 
And to the air the freshening wind gaye 
lightly 
Its breathings of perfume. 

When one beholds the dusky hedges blos- 
som, 
A rustic bridal, ah ! how sweet it is ! 
To sounds of joyous melodies, 
That touch with tenderness the trembling 
bosom, 
A band of maidens 
Gayly frolicking, 
A band of youngsters 



624, 



TRANSLATIONS 



Wildly rollicking ! 
Kissing, 
Caressing, 
With fingers pressing, 

Till in the veriest 
Madness of mirth, as they dance, 
They retreat and advance, 

Trying whose laugh shall be loud- 
est and merriest ; 
While the bride, with roguish eyes, 
Sporting with them, now escapes and 
cries : 
" Those who catch me 
Married verily 
This year shall be ! " 

And all pursue with eager haste, 
And all attain what they pursue, 
And touch her pretty apron fresh and 

new, 
And the linen kirtle round her waist. 

Meanwhile, whence comes it that 

among 
These youthful maidens fresh and fair, 
So joyous, with such laughing air, 
Baptiste stands sighing, with silent 

tongue ? 
And yet the bride is fair and young ! 
Is it Saint Joseph would say to us all, 
That love, o'er-hasty, precedeth a fall ? 
Oh no ! for a maiden frail, I trow, 
Never bore so lofty a brow ! 
What lovers ! they give not a single caress ! 
To see them so careless and cold to-day, 
These are grand people, one would 
say. 
What ails Baptiste ? what grief doth him 
oppress ? 

It is, that, half-way up the hill, 
In yon cottage, by whose walls 
Stand the cart-house and the stalls, 
Dwelleth the blind orphan still, 
Daughter of a veteran old ; 
And you must know, one year ago, 
That Margaret, the young and tender, 
Was the village pride and splendor, 
And Baptiste her lover bold. 
Love, the deceiver, them ensnared ; 
For them the altar was prepared ; 
But alas ! the summer's blight, 
The dread disease that none can stay, 
The pestilence that walks by night, 
Took the young bride's sight away. 



All at the father's stern command was 

changed ; 
Their peace was gone, but not their love 

estranged. 
Wearied at home, erelong the lover fled ; 
Returned but three short days ago, 
The golden chain they round hini 

throw, 
He is enticed, and onward led 
To marry Angela, and yet 
Is thinking ever of Margaret. 

Then suddenly a maiden cried, 
" Amia, Theresa, Mary, Kate ! 
Here comes the cripple Jane ! " And by a 
fountain's side 
A woman, bent and gray with years, 
Under the mulberry trees appears, 
And all towards her run, as fleet 
As had they wings upon their feet. 

It is that Jane, the cripple Jane, 
Is a soothsayer, wary and kind. 
She telleth fortunes, and none complain. 
She promises one a village swain, 
Another a happy wedding-day, 
And the bride a lovely boy straight* 

way. 
All comes to pass as she avers ; 
She never deceives, she never errs. 

But for this once the village seer 
Wears a countenance severe, 

And from beneath her eyebrows thin and 
white 
Her two eyes flash like cannons bright 
Aimed at the bridegroom in waistcoat 

blue, 
Who, like a statue, stands in view ; 
Changing color, as well he might, 
When the beldame wrinkled and gray 
Takes the young bride by the hand, 
And, with the tip of her reedy wand 
Making the sign of the cross, doth 

say: — 
" Thoughtless Angela, beware ! 
Lest, when thou weddest this false 

bridegroom, 
Thou diggest for thyself a tomb ! " 

And she was silent ; and the maidens fair 

Saw from each eye escape a swollen tear ; 

But on a little streamlet silver-clear, 

What are two drops of turbid rain ? 
Saddened a moment, the bridal train 
Resumed the dance and song again ; 



THE BLIND GIRL OF CAST&L CUILLfe 



625 



The bridegroom only was pale with fear ; — 
And down green alleys 
Of verdurous valleys, 
With merry sallies, 
They sang the refrain : — 

The roads should blossom, the roads should bloom, 
So fair a bride shall leave her home I 
Should blossom and bloom with garlands gay, 
So fair a bride shall pass to-day ■' 



And by suffering worn and weary, 
But beautiful as some fair angel yet, 
Thus lamented Margaret, 
In her cottage lone and dreary : — 

" He has arrived ! arrived at last ! 

Yet Jane has named him not these three 
days past ; 
Arrived ! yet keeps aloof so far ! 

And knows that of my night he is the star ! 

Knows that long months I wait alone, be- 
nighted, 

And count the moments since he went 
away ! 

Come ! keep the promise of that happier 
day, 

That I may keep the faith to thee I 
plighted ! 

What joy have I without thee ? what de- 
light ? 

Grief wastes my life, and makes it misery ; 

Day for the others ever, but for me 
Forever night ! forever night ! 

When he is gone 't is dark ! my soul is 
sad ! 

I suffer ! O my God ! come, make me glad. 

When he is near, no thoughts of day in- 
trude ; 

Day has blue heavens, but Baptiste has 
blue eyes ! 

Within them shines for me a heaven of 
love, 

A heaven all happiness, like that above, 
No more of grief ! no more of lassi- 
tude ! 

Earth I forget, — and heaven, and all dis- 
tresses, 

When seated by my side my hand he 
presses ; 
But when alone, remember all ! 

Where is Baptiste? he hears not when I 
call! 



A branch of ivy, dying on the ground, 
I need some bough to twine around ! 

In pity come ! be to my suffering kind ! 

True love, they say, in grief doth more 
abound ! 
What then — when one is blind ? 

" Who knows ? perhaps I am forsaken ! 
Ah ! woe is me ! then bear me to nay 
grave ! 

God ! what thoughts within me 
waken ! 

Away ! he will return ! I do but rave ! 
He will return ! I need not fear ! 
He swore it by our Saviour dear ; 
He could not come at his own will ; 
Is weary, or perhaps is ill ! 
Perhaps his heart, in this disguise, 
Prepares for me some sweet sur- 
prise ! 
But some one comes ! Though blind, my 

heart can see ! 
And that deceives me not ! 't is he ! 't is 
he!" 
And the door ajar is set, 
And poor, confiding Margaret 
Rises, with outstretched arms, but sightless 

eyes ; 
'T is only Paul, her brother, who thus 
cries : — 
" Angela the bride has passed ! 

1 saw the wedding guests go by ; 
Tell me, my sister, why were we not 

asked ? 
For all are there but you and I ! " 

" Angela married ! and not sent 

To tell her secret unto me ! 

Oh, speak ! who may the bridegroom 

be?" 
" My sister, 't is Baptiste, thy 

friend!" 

A cry the blind girl gave, but nothing 

said ; 
A milky whiteness spreads upon her 
cheeks ; 
An icy hand, as heavy as lead, 
Descending, as her brother speaks, 
Upon her heart, that has ceased to 

beat, 
Suspends awhile its life and heat. 
She stands beside the boy, now sore dis- 
tressed, 
A wax Madonna as a peasant dressed. 



626 



TRANSLATIONS 



At length, the bridal song again 
Brings her back to her sorrow and 
pain. 

" Hark ! the joyous airs are ringing ! 
Sister, dost thou hear them singing ? 
How merrily they laugh and jest ! 
Would we were bidden with the rest ! 
I would don my hose of homespun 

gray, 
And my doublet of linen striped and 

gay; 

Perhaps they will come; for they do 

not wed 
Till to-morrow at seven o'clock, it is 

said ! " 
" I know it ! " answered Margaret ; 
Whom the vision, with aspect black as jet, 

Mastered again ; and its hand of ice 
field her heart crushed, as in a vice ! 

" Paul, be not sad ! 'T is a holiday ; 
To-morrow put on thy doublet gay ! 
But leave me now for awhile alone." 
Away, with a hop and a jump, went 

Paul, 
And, as he whistled along the hall, 
Entered Jane, the crippled crone. 

" Holy Virgin ! what dreadful heat ! 
I am faint, and weary, and out of 

breath ! 
But thou art cold, — art chill as 

death ; 
My little friend ! what ails thee, 

sweet ? " 
*' Nothing ! I heard them singing home the 

bride ; 
And, as I listened to the song, 
I thought my turn would come erelong, 
Thou knowest it is at Whitsuntide. 
Thy cards forsooth can never lie, 
To me such joy they prophesy, 
Thy skill shall be vaunted far and 

wide 
When they behold him at my side. 
And poor Baptiste, what sayest thou ? 
It must seem long to him ; — methinks I see 

him now ! " 
Jane, shuddering, her hand doth press : 
" Thy love I cannot all approve ; 
We must not trust too much to happi- 
ness ; — 
Go, pray to God, that thou mayest love him 

less ! " 
" The more I pray, the more I love ! 



It is no sin, for God is on my side i " 

It was enough ; and Jane no more replied. 

Now to all hope her heart is barred and 
cold ; 
But to deceive the beldame old 
She takes a sweet, contented air ; 
Speak of foul weather or of fair, 
At every word the maiden smiles I 
Thus the beguiler she beguiles ; 

So that, departing at the evening's close, 
She says, " She may be saved ! she 
nothing knows ! " 

Poor Jane, the cunning sorceress ! 
Now that thou wouldst, thou art no pro- 
phetess ! 
This morning, in the fulness of thy heart, 

Thou wast so, far beyond thine art I 

III 

Now rings the bell, nine times reverber- 
ating, 

And the white daybreak, stealing up the 
sky, 

Sees in two cottages two maidens waiting, 
How differently ! 

Queen of a day, by flatterers caressed, 
The one puts on her cross and crown, 
Decks with a huge bouquet her breast, 
And flaunting, fluttering up and down, 
Looks at herself, and cannot rest. 
The other, blind, within her little 

room, 
Has neither crown nor flower's per- 
fume ; 
But in their stead for something gropes 
apart, 
That in a drawer's recess doth lie, 
And, 'neath her bodice of bright scarlet 
dye, 
Convulsive clasps it to her heart. 

The one, fantastic, light as air, 

'Mid kisses ringing, 

And joyous singing, 
Forgets to say her morning prayer ! 

The other, with cold drops upon her brow, 
Joins her two hands, and kneels upon the 
floor, 
And whispers, as her brother opes the door, 
" O God ! forgive me now ! " 



THE BLIND GIRL OF CAST&L CUILLE 



62- 



And then the orphan, young and blind, 
Conducted by her brother's hand, 
Towards the church, through paths un- 

scanned, 
With tranquil air, her way doth wind. 

Odors of laurel, making her faint and pale, 
Round her at times exhale, 

And in the sky as yet no sunny ray, 
But brumal vapors gray. 

Near that castle, fair to see, 
Crowded with sculptures old, in every 

part, 
Marvels of nature and of art, 
And proud of its name of high degree, 
A little chapel, almost bare 
At the base of the rock, is builded 

there ; 
All glorious that it lifts aloof, 
Above each jealous cottage roof, 
Its sacred summit, swept by autumn gales, 
And its blackened steeple high in air, 
Round which the osprey screams and 

sails. 

" Paul, lay thy noisy rattle by ! " 

Thus Margaret said. " Where are we ? we 
ascend ! " 

" Yes ; seest thou not our journey's end ? 

Hearest not the osprey from the belfry 
cry ? 

The hideous bird, that brings ill luck, we 
know ! 

Dost thou remember when our father said, 

The night we watched beside his bed, 

' O daughter, I am weak and low ; 

Take care of Paul ; I feel that I am dy- 
ing!' 

And thou, and he, and I, all fell to crying ? 

Then on the roof the osprey screamed 
aloud ; 

And here they brought our father in his 
shroud. 

There is his grave ; there stands the cross 
we set ; 

Why dost thou clasp me so, dear Mar- 
garet ? 
Come in ! the bride will be here soon : 

Thou tremblest ! O my God ! thou art go- 
ing to swoon ! " 

She could no more, — the blind girl, weak 

and weary ! 
A ?oice seemed crying from that grave so 

dreary, 



" What wouldst thou do, my daughter ? " — 
and she started, 
And quick recoiled, aghast, faint- 
hearted ; 
But Paul, impatient, urges evermore 

Her steps towards the open door ; 
And when, beneath her feet, the unhappy 

maid 
Crushes the laurel near the house immor- 
tal, 
And with her head, as Paul talks on again, 
Touches the crown of filigrane 
Suspended from the low-arched portal, 
No more restrained, no more afraid, 
She walks, as for a feast arrayed, 
And in the ancient chapel's sombre night 
They both are lost to sight. 

At length the bell, 
With booming sound, 
Sends forth, resounding round, 
Its hymeneal peal o'er rock and down the 
dell. 
It is broad day, with sunshine and with 
rain ; 
And yet the guests delay not long, 
For soon arrives the bridal train, 
And with it brings the village throng, 

In sooth, deceit maketh no mortal gay, 
For lo ! Baptiste on this triumphant day, 
Mute as an idiot, sad as yester-morning, 
Thinks only of the beldame's words of 



And Angela thinks of her cross, I wis ; 
To be a bride is all ! the pretty lisper 
Feels her heart swell to hear all round her 

whisper, 
" How beautiful ! how beautiful she is ! " 

But she must calm that giddy head, 
For already the Mass is said • 
At the holy table stands the priest ; 
The wedding ring is blessed ; Baptiste re- 
ceives it ; 
Ere on the finger of the bride he leaves 
it, 
He must pronounce one word at 
least ! 
'T is spoken ; and sudden at the grooms- 
man's side 
" 'T is he ! " a well-known voice has cried 
And while the wedding guests all hold theii 
breath. 



628 



TRANSLATIONS 



Opes the confessional, and the blind girl, 


These good people sang 


see ! 


Songs devout and sweet ; 


"Baptiste," she said, "since thou hast 


While the rafters rang, 


wished my death, 


There they stood with freezing feetc 


As holy water be my blood for thee ! " 


Let us by the fire 


And calmly in the air a knife suspended ! 


Ever higher 


Doubtless her guardian angel near attended, 


Sing them till the night expire. 


For anguish did its work so well, 




That, ere the fatal stroke descended, 


Nuns in frigid cells 


Lifeless she fell ! 


At this holy tide, 




For want of something else, 


At eve, instead of bridal verse, 


Christmas songs at times have tried. 


The De Profundis filled the air ; 


Let us by the fire 


Decked with flowers a simple hearse 


Ever higher 


To the churchyard forth they bear ; 


Sing them till the night expire I 


Village girls in robes of snow 




Follow, weeping as they go ; 


Washerwomen old, 


Nowhere was a smile that day, 


To the sound they beat, 


$o, ah no ! for each one seemed to say : — 


Sing by rivers cold, 




With uncovered heads and feet. 


The road should mourn and be veiled in gloom, 


Let us by the fire 


So fair a corpse shall leave its home ! 


Ever higher 


Should mourn and should weep, ah, well-away I 


Sing them till the night expire. 


So fair a corpse shall pass to day I 






Who by the fireside stands 




Stamps his feet and sings ; 




But he who blows his hands 


A CHRISTMAS CAROL 


Not so gay a carol brings. 




Let us by the fire 


FROM THE NOEI BOURGUIGNON DE GUI 


Ever higher 


BAROZAI 


Sing them till the night expire ! 


I hear along our street 




Pass the minstrel throngs ; 




Hark ! they play so sweet, 


CONSOLATION 


On their hautboys, Christmas songs ! 




Let us by the fire 


TO M. DUPERRIER, GENTLEMAN OF AIX 


Ever higher 


IN PROVENCE, ON THE DEATH OF HIS 


Sing them till the night expire ! 


DAUGHTER 


In December ring 


BY FRANCOIS DE MALHERBE 


Every day the chimes ; 




Loud the gleemen sing 


Will then, Duperrier, thy sorrow be eter- 


In the streets their merry rhymes, 


nal ? 


Let us by the fire 


And shall the sad discourse 


Ever higher 


Whispered within thy heart, by tenderness 


Sing them till the night expire. 


paternal, 




Only augment its force ? 


Shepherds at the grange, 




Where the Babe was born, 


Thy daughter's mournful fate, into the tomb 


Sang, with many a change, 


descending 


Christmas carols until morn. 


By death's frequented ways, 


Let us by the fire 


Has it become to thee a labyrinth nevei 


Ever higher 


ending, 


Sing them till the night expire ! 


Where thy lost reason strays ? 






THE ANGEL AND THE CHILD 



62Q 



I know the charms that made her youth a 
benediction : 
Nor should I be content, 
As a censorious friend, to solace thine afflic- 
tion 
By her disparagement. 

But she was of the world, which fairest 
things exposes 
To fates the most forlorn ; 
A rose, she too hath lived as long as live 
the roses, 
The space of one brief morn. 

Death has his rigorous laws, unparalleled, 
unfeeling ; 
All prayers to him are vain ; 
Cruel, he stops his ears, and, deaf to our 
appealing, 
He leaves us to complain. 

The poor man in his hut, with only thatch 
for cover, 
Unto these laws must bend ; 
The sentinel that guards the barriers of the 
Louvre 
Cannot our kings defend. 

To murmur against death, in petulant defi- 
ance, 
Is never for the best ; 
To will what God doth will, that is the only 
science 
That gives us any rest. 



TO CARDINAL RICHELIEU 

BY FRANCOIS DE MALHERBE 

Thou mighty Prince of Church and State, 
Richelieu ! until the hour of death, 
Whatever road man chooses, Fate 
Still holds him subject to her breath. 
Spun of all silks, our days and nights 
Have sorrows woven with delights ; 
And of this intermingled shade 
Our various destiny appears, 
Even as one sees the course of years 
Of summers and of winters made. 

Sometimes the soft, deceitful hours 
Let us enjoy the halcyon wave ; 
Sometimes impending peril lowers 
Beyond the seaman's skill to save. 



The Wisdom, infinitely wise, 
That gives to human destinies 
Their foreordained necessity, 
Has made no law more fixed below, 
Than the alternate ebb and flow 
Of Fortune and Adversity. 



THE ANGEL AND THE CHILD 

(L'Ange et l'Enfant ; Elegie A une 
Mere) 

BY JEAN REBOUL, THE BAKER OF NISMES 

An angel with a radiant face, 

Above a cradle bent to look, 
Seemed his own image there to trace. 

As in the waters of a brook. 

" Dear child ! who me resemblest so," 
It whispered, " come, oh come with me ! 

Happy together let us go, 

The earth unworthy is of thee ! 

" Here none to perfect bliss attain ; 

The soul in pleasure suffering lies ; 
Joy hath an undertone of pain, 

And even the happiest hours their sighs. 

" Fear doth at every portal knock ; 

Never a day serene and pure 
From the o'ershadowing tempest's shock 

Hath made the morrow's dawn secure. 

" What, then, shall sorrows and shall fears 
Come to disturb so pure a brow ? 

And with the bitterness of tears 

These eyes of azure troubled grow? 

" Ah no ! into the fields of space, 
Away shalt thou escape with me ; 

And Providence will grant thee grace 
Of all the days that wers to be. 

" Let no one in thy dwelling cower, 

In sombre vestments draped and veiled J 

But let them welcome thy last hour, 
As thy first moments once they hailed. 

" Without a cloud be there each brow ; 

There let the grave no shadow cast ; 
When one is pure as tbou art now, 

The fairest day is still the last." 



»3<> 



TRANSLATIONS 



And waving wide his wings of white, 
The angel, at these words, had sped 

Towards the eternal realms of light ! — 
Poor mother I see, thy son is dead ! 



ON THE TERRACE OF THE 
AIGALADES 

BY JOSEPH MERY 

From this high portal, where upsprings 
The rose to touch our hands in play, 
We at a glance behold three things, — 
The Sea, the Town, and the Highway. 

A.nd the Sea says : My shipwrecks fear ; 
f drown my best friends in the deep ; 
And those who braved my tempests, here 
Among my sea-weeds lie asleep ! 

The Town says : I am filled and fraught 
With tumult and with smoke and care ; 
My days with toil are overwrought, 
And in my nights I gasp for air. 

The Highway says : My wheel-tracks guide 
To the pale climates of the North ; 
Where my last milestone stands abide 
The people to their death gone forth. 

Here in the shade this life of ours, 
Full of delicious air, glides by 
Amid a multitude of flowers 
As countless as the stars on high ; 

These red-tiled roofs, this fruitful soil, 
Bathed with an azure all divine, 
Where springs the tree that gives us oil, 
The grape that giveth us the wine ; 

Beneath these mountains stripped of' trees, 
Whose tops with flowers are covered o'er, 
Where springtime of the Hesperides 
Begins, but endeth nevermore ; 

Under these leafy vaults and walls, 
That unto gentle sleep persuade ; 
This rainbow of the waterfalls, 
Of mingled mist and sunshine made ; 

Upon these shores, where all invites, 
We live our languid life apart ; 
This air is that of life's delights, 
The festival of sense and heart ; 



This limpid space of time prolong, 
Forget to-morrow in to-day, 
And leave unto the passing throng 
The Sea, the Town, and the Highway 



TO MY BROOKLET 

(A MON RUISSEAU) 
BY JEAN FRANCOIS DUCIS 

Thou brooklet, all unknown to song, 
Hid in the covert of the wood ! 

Ah, yes, like thee I fear the throng, 
Like thee I love the solitude. 

O brooklet, let my sorrows past 
Lie all forgotten in their graves, 

Till in my thoughts remain at last 

Only thy peace, thy flowers, thy wave: 

The lily by thy margin waits ; — 
The nightingale, the marguerite ; 

In shadow here he meditates 

His nest, his love, his music sweet. 

Near thee the self-collected soul 

Knows naught of error or of crime ; 

Thy waters, murmuring as they roll, 
Transform his musings into rhyme. 

Ah, when, on bright autumnal eves, 
Pursuing still thy course, shall I 

List the soft shudder of the leaves, 
And hear the lapwing's plaintive cry ? 



BARREGES 

BY LEFRANC DE POMPIGNAN 

I leave you, ye cold mountain chains, 
Dwelling of warriors stark and frore t 
You, may these eyes behold no more, 

Save on the horizon of our plains. 

Vanish, ye frightful, gloomy views ! 
Ye rocks that mount up to the clouds t 
Of skies, enwrapped in misty shrouds, 

Impracticable avenues ! 

Ye torrents, that with might and main 
Break pathways through the rocky wallsi 
With your terrific waterfalls 

Fatigue no more my weary brain ! 



A QUIET LIFE 



63* 



Arise, ye landscapes full of charms, 

Arise, ye pictures of delight ! 

Ye brooks, that water in your flight 
The flowers and harvests of our farms ! 

You I perceive, ye meadows green, 
Where the Garonne the lowland fills, 
Not far from that long chain of hills, 

With intermingled vales between. 

Yon wreath of smoke, that mounts so high, 
Methinks from my own hearth must come ; 
With speed, to that beloved home, 

Fly, ye too lazy coursers, fly ! 

And bear me thither, where the soul 

In quiet may itself possess, 

Where all things soothe the mind's dis- 
tress, 
Where all things teach me and console. 



WILL EVER THE DEAR DAYS 
COME BACK AGAIN ? 

Will ever the dear days come back again, 
Those days of June, when lilacs were in 

bloom, 
And bluebirds sang their sonnets in the 

gloom 
Of leaves that roofed them in from sun 
or rain ? 
I know not ; but a presence will remain 
Forever and forever in this room, 
Formless, diffused in air ; like a per- 
fume, — 
A phantom of the heart, and not the brain. 
Delicious days ! when every spoken word 
Was like a footfall nearer and more near, 
And a mysterious knocking at the gate 
Of the heart's secret places, and we heard 
In the sweet tumult of delight and fear 
A voice that whispered, '* Open, I cannot 
wait ! " 



AT LA CHAUDEAU 

BY XAVIER MARMIER 

At La Chaudeau, — 't is long since then 
I was young, — my years twice ten ; 
All things smiled on the happy boy, 
Dreams of love and songs of joy, 
Azure of heaven and wave below, 
At La Chaudeau. 



To La Chaudeau I come back old : 
My head is gray, my blood is cold ; 
Seeking along the meadow ooze, 
Seeking beside the river Seymouse, 
The days of my spring-time of long ago 
At La Chaudeau. 

At La Chaudeau nor heart nor brain 
Ever grows old with grief and pain ; 
A sweet remembrance keeps off age ; 
A tender friendship doth still assuage 
The burden of sorrow that one may know 
At La Chaudeau. 

At La Chaudeau, had fate decreed 

To limit the wandering life I lead, 

Peradventure I still, forsooth, 

Should have preserved my fresh greet 

youth 
Under the shadows the hill-tops throw 
At La Chaudeau. 

At La Chaudeau, live on, my friends, 
Happy to be where God intends ; 
And sometimes, by the evening fire, 
Think of him whose sole desire 
Is again to sit in the old chateau 
At La Chaudeau. 



A QUIET LIFE 

Let him who will, by force or fraud In- 
nate, 

Of courtly grandeurs gain the slippery 
height ; 

I, leaving not the home of my delight, 

Far from the world and noise will medi- 
tate. 
Then, without pomps or perils of the great, 

I shall behold the day succeed the night ; 

Behold the alternate seasons take their 
flight, 

And in serene repose old age await. 
And so, whenever Death shall come to 
close 

The happy moments that my days com- 
pose, 

I, full of years, shall die, obscure, alone ! 
How wretched is the man, with honors 
crowned, 

Who, having not the one thing needful 
found, 

Dies, known to all, but to himself un* 
known. 



632 



TRANSLATIONS 






THE WINE OF JURANgON 

BY CHARLES CORAN 

Little sweet wine of Jurancon, 
You are dear to rny memory still ! 

With mine host and his merry song, 
Under the rose-tree I drank my fill. 

Twenty years after, passing that way, 
Under the trellis I found again 

Mine host, still sitting there aufrais, 
And singing still the same refrain. 

The Jurangon, so fresh and bold, 
Treats me as one it used to know; 

Souvenirs of the days of old 
Already from the bottle flow. 

With glass in hand our glances met; 

We pledge, we drink. How sour it is ! 
Never Argenteuil piquette 

Was to my palate sour as this ! 

And yet the vintage was good, in sooth; 

The self-same juice, the self-same cask ! 
It was you, O gayety of my youth, 

That failed in the autumnal flask ! 



FRIAR LUBIN 

(Le Frere Lubin) 

BY CLEMENT MAROT 

To gallop off to town post-haste, 

So oft, the times I cannot tell; 
To do vile deed, nor feel disgraced, - 

Friar Lubin will do it well. 
But a sober life to lead, 

To honor virtue, and pursue it, 
That 's a pious, Christian deed, — 

Friar Lubin cannot do it. 

To mingle, with a knowing smile, 
The goods of others with his own, 

^.nd leave you without cross or pile, 
Friar Lubin stands alone. 

To say 't is yours is all in vain, 
If once he lays his finger to it; 



For as to giving back again, 
Friar Lubin cannot do it. 

With flattering words and gentle tone, 

To woo and win some guileless maid, 
Cunning pander need you none, — 

Friar Lubin knows the trade. 
Loud preacheth he sobriety, 

But as for water, doth eschew it; 
Your dog may drink it, — but not he; 

Friar Lubin cannot do it. 



When an evil deed 's to do 
Friar Lubin is stout and true; 
Glimmers a ray of goodness through it, 
Friar Lubin cannot do it. 



RONDEL 

BY JEAN FROISSART 

Love, love, what wilt thou with this heart 
of mine ? 
Naught see I fixed or sure in thee ! 
I do not know thee, — nor what deeds are 

thine : 
Love, love, what wilt thou with this heart 
of mine ? 
Naught see I fixed or sure in thee ! 

Shall I be mute, or vows with prayers 

combine ? 

Ye who are blessed in loving, tell it me: 

Love, love, what wilt thou with this heart 

of mine ? 

Naught see I permanent or sure in thee ! 



MY SECRET 

BY FELIX ARVERS 

My soul its secret has, my life too has its 
mystery, 

A love eternal in a moment's space con- 
ceived ; 

Hopeless the evil is, I have not told its 
history, 

And she who was the cause nor knew it nor 
believed. 



THE TERRESTRIAL PARADISE 



633 



Alas ! I shall have passed close by her un- 

perceived, 
Forever at her side, and yet forever lonely, 
I shall unto the end have made life's jour- 
ney, only 
Daring to ask for naught, and having 

naught received. 
For her, though God has made her gentle 

and endearing, 
She will go on her way distraught and 

without hearing 
These murmurings of love that round her 

steps ascend, 
Piously faithful still unto her austere duty, 
Will say, when she shall read these lines 

full of her beauty, 
" Who can this woman be ? " and will not 

comprehend. 



FROM THE ITALIAN 
THE CELESTIAL PILOT 

PURGATORIO II. 13-51 

And now, behold ! as at the approach of 
morning, 

Through the gross vapors, Mars grows 
fiery red 

Down in the west upon the ocean floor, 
Appeared to me, — may I again behold 
it! 

A light along the sea, so swiftly com- 
ing, 

Its motion by no flight of wing is equalled. 
And when therefrom I had withdrawn a 
little 

Mine eyes, that I might question my con- 
ductor, 

Again I saw it brighter grown and 
larger. 
Thereafter, on all sides of it, appeared 

I knew not what of white, and under- 
neath, 

Little by little, there came forth another. 
My master yet had uttered not a word, 

While the first whiteness into wings un- 
folded, 

But, when he clearly recognized the 
pilot, 



He cried aloud : " Quick, quick, and bow 

the knee ! 
Behold the Angel of God 1 fold up thy 

hands ! 
Henceforward shalt thou see such offi- 
cers ! 
See, how he scorns all human arguments, 
So that no oar he wants, nor other sail 
Than his own wings, between so distant 

shores ! 
See, how he holds them, pointed straight to 

heaven, 
Fanning the air with the eternal pinions, 
That do not moult themselves like mortal 

hair ! " 
And then, as nearer and more near us 

came 
The Bird of Heaven, more glorious he 

appeared, 
So that the eye could not sustain his 

presence, 
But down I cast it ; and he came to shore 
With a small vessel, gliding swift and 

light, 
So that the water swallowed naught 

thereof. 
Upon the stern stood the Celestial Pilot ! 
Beatitude seemed written in his face ! 
And more than a hundred spirits sat 

within. 
" In exitu Israel de jEgypto ! " 

Thus sang they all together in one 

voice, 
With whatso in that Psalm is after writ- 
ten. 
Then made he sign of holy rood upon 

them, 
Whereat all cast themselves upon the 

shore, 
And he departed swiftly as he came. 



THE TERRESTRIAL PARADISE 

PURGATORIO XXVIII. I-33. 

Longing already to search in and round 
The heavenly forest, dense and living- 
green, 
Which tempered to the eyes the new- 
born day, 
Withouten more delay I left the bank, 



^34 



TRANSLATIONS 



Crossing the level country slowly, slowly, 
Over the soil, that everywhere breathed 
fragrance. 
A gently-breathing air, that no mutation 
Had in itself, smote me upon the fore- 
head 
No heavier blow than of a pleasant breeze, 
Whereat the tremulous branches readily 
Did all of them bow downward towards 

that side 
Where its first shadow casts the Holy 
Mountain ; 
Yet not from their upright direction bent 
So that the little birds upon their tops 
Should cease the practice of their tune- 
ful art ; 
But, with full-throated jo*- the hours of 
prime 
Singing received they in the midst of 

foliage 
That made monotonous burden to their 
rhymes, 
Even as from branch to branch it gather- 
ing swells, 
Through the pine forests on the shore of 

Chiassi, 
When iEolus unlooses the Sirocco. 
Already my slow steps had led me on 
Into the ancient wood so far, that I 
Could see no more the place where I 
had entered. 
And lo ! my further course cut off a river, 
Which, tow'rds the left hand, with its 

little waves, 
Bent down the grass, that on its margin 
sprang. 
All waters that on earth most limpid are, 
Would seem to have within themselves 

some mixture, 
Compared with that, which nothing doth 
conceal, 
Although it moves on with a brown, brown 
current, 
Under the shade perpetual, that never 
Ray of the sun lets in, nor of the moon. 



BEATRICE 

PURGATORIO XXX. 1 3-33, 85-99, X XXI. 
13-21. 

Even as the Blessed, at the final summons, 
Shall rise up quickened, each one from 
his grave, 



Wearing again the garments of the flesh, 
So, upon that celestial chariot, 

A hundred rose ad vocem tanti senis, 
Ministers and messengers of life eter- 
nal. 
They all were saying, " Benedictus qui 
venis," 
And scattering flowers above and round 

about, 
" Manibus date Mia plenis." 
Oft have I seen, at the approach of day, 
The orient sky all stained with roseate 

hues, 
And the other heaven with light serene 
adorned, 
And the sun's face uprising, overshad- 
owed, 
So that, by temperate influence of va- 
pors, 
The eye sustained his aspect for long 
while ; 
Thus in the bosom of a cloud of flowers, 
Which from those hands angelic were 

thrown up, 
And down descended inside and with- 
out, 
With crown of olive o'er a snow-white 
veil, 
Appeared a lady, under a green mantle, 
Vested in colors of the living flame. 

Even as the snow, among the living raf- 
ters 
Upon the back of Italy, congeals, 
Blown on and beaten by Sclavonian 
winds, 
And then, dissolving, filters through it- 
self, 
Whene'er the land, that loses shadow, 

breathes, 
Like as a taper melts before a fire, 
Even such I was, without a sigh or tear, 
Before the song of those who chime for- 
ever 
After the chiming of the eternal 
spheres ; 
But, when I heard in those sweet melo- 
dies 
Compassion for me, more than had they 

said, 
" Oh wherefore, lady, dost thou thus con- 
sume him ? " 
The ice, that was about my heart congealed, 
To air and water changed, and, in mv 
anguish, 



SEVEN SONNETS AND A CANZONE 



63S 



Through lips and eyes carne gushing 
from my breast. 



Confusion and dismay, together min- 
gled, 
Forced such a feeble " Yes ! " out of my 

mouth, 
To understand it one had need of 
sight. 
Even as a cross-bow breaks, when 't is dis- 
charged, 
Too tensely drawn the bow-string and 

the bow, 
And with less force the arrow hits the 
mark ; 
So I gave way beneath this heavy burden, 
Gushing forth into bitter tears and 



And the voice, fainting, flagged upon its 
passage. 



TO ITALY 

BY VINCENZO DA FILICAJA 

Italy ! Italy ! thou who 'rt doomed to 
wear 
The fatal gift of beauty, and possess 
The dower funest of infinite wretched- 



Written upon thy forehead by de- 
spair ; 
Ah. ! would that thou wert stronger, or less 
fair, 

That they might fear thee more, or love 
thee less, 

Who in the splendor of thy loveliness 

Seem wasting, yet to mortal combat 
dare ! 
Then from the Alps I should not see de- 
scending 

Such torrents of armed men, nor Gallic 
horde 

Drinking the wave of Po, distained with 
gore, 
Nor should I see thee girded with a 
sword 

Not thine, and with the stranger's arm 
contending, 

Victor or vanquished, slave forever- 
more. 



SEVEN SONNETS AND A CAN- 
ZONE 



The following translations are from the poems of 
Michael Angelo as revised by his nephew, Michael 
Angelo the Younger, and were made before the publica- 
tion of the original text by Guasti. 



THE ARTIST 

Nothing the greatest artist can conceive 
That every marble block doth not confine 
Within itself ; and only its design 
The hand that follows intellect can 
achieve. 
The ill I flee, the good that I believe, 
In thee, fair lady, lofty and divine, 
Thus hidden lie ; and so that death be 

mine, 
Art of desired success doth me bereave. 
Love is not guilty, then, nor thy fair face, 
Nor fortune, cruelty, nor great disdain, 
Of my disgrace, nor chance nor destiny, 
If in thy heart both death and love find 
place 
At the same time, and if my humble 

brain, 
Burning, can nothing draw but death 
from thee. 



II 



FIRE 

Not without fire can any workman mould 
The iron to his preconceived design, 
Nor can the artist without fire refine 
And purify from all its dross the gold ; 
Nor can revive the phcenix, we are told, 
Except by fire. Hence, if such death be 

mine, 
I hope to rise again with the divine, 
Whom death augments, and time cannot 
make old. 
sweet, sweet death ! O fortunate fire 
that burns 
Within me still to renovate my days, 
Though I am almost numbered with the 
dead ! 
If by its nature unto heaven returns 
This element, me, kindled in its blaze, 
Will it bear upward when my life is fled 



6 3 6 



TRANSLATIONS 



III 


V 


YOUTH AND AGE 


TO VITTORIA COLONNA 


Oh give me back the days when loose and 


Lady, how can it chauce — yet this we 


free 


see 


To my blind passion were the curb and 


In long experience — that will longer 


rein, 


last 


Oh give me back the angelic face again, 


A living image carved from quarries 


With which all virtue buried seems to 


vast 


be! 


Than its own maker, who dies pres- 


Oh give my panting footsteps back to me, 


ently ? 


That are in age so slow and fraught with 


Cause yieldeth to effect if this so be, 


pain, 


And even Nature is by Art surpassed ; 


And fire and moisture in the heart and 


This know I, who to Art have given the 


brain, 


past, 


If thou wouldst have me burn and weep 


But see that Time is breaking faith with 


for thee ! 


me. 


If it be true thou livest alone, Amor, 


Perhaps on both of us long life can I 


On the sweet -bitter tears of human 


Either in color or in stone bestow, 


hearts, 


By now portraying each in look and 


In an old man thou canst not wake de- 


mien ; 


sire ; 


So that a thousand years after we die, 


Souls that have almost reached the other 


How fair thou wast, and I how full of 


shore 


woe, 


Of a diviner love should feel the darts, 


And wherefore I so loved thee, may be 


And be as tinder to a holier fire. 


seen. 


IV 


VI 


OLD AGE 


TO VITTORIA COLONNA 


The course of my long life hath reached at 


When the prime mover of my many sighs 


last, 


Heaven took through death from out her 


In fragile bark o'er a tempestuous sea, 


earthly place, 


The common harbor, where must ren- 


Nature, that never made so fair a face, 


dered be 


Remained ashamed, and tears were in all 


Account of all the actions of the past. 


eyes. 


The impassioned phantasy, that, vague and 


fate, unheeding my impassioned cries ! 


vast, 


hopes fallacious ! thou spirit of 


Made art an idol and a king to me, 


grace, 


Was an illusion, and but vanity 


Where art thou now ? Earth holds in 


Were the desires that lured me and 


its embrace 


harassed. 


Thy lovely limbs, thy holy thoughts the 


The dreams of love, that were so sweet of 


skies. 


yore, 


Vainly did cruel death attempt to stay 


What are they now, when two deaths 


The rumor of thy virtuous renown, 


may be mine, — 


That Lethe's waters could not wash away ! 


One sure, and one forecasting its alarms ? 


A thousand leaves, since he hath stricken 


Painting and sculpture satisfy no more 


thee down, 


The soul now turning to the Love Di- 


Speak of thee, nor to thee could Heaven 


vine, 


convey, 


That oped, to embrace us, on the cross its 


Except through death, a refuge and a 


arms. 


crown. 



SONG 



b?7 



VII 

DANTE 

What should be said of him cannot be 
said ; 

By too great splendor is his name at- 
tended ; 

To blame is easier those who him of- 
fended, 

Than reach the faintest glory round him 
shed. 
This man descended to the doomed and 
dead 

For our instruction ; then to God as- 
cended ; 

Heaven opened wide to him its portals 
splendid, 

Who from his country's, closed against 
him, lied. 
Ungrateful land ! To its own prejudice 

Nurse of his fortunes ; and this showeth 
well 

That the most perfect most of grief shall 
see. 
Among a thousand proofs let one suffice, 

That as his exile hath no parallel, 

Ne'er walked the earth a greater man 
than he. 



VIII 

CANZONE 

Ah me ! ah me ! when thinking of the 
years, 
The vanished years, alas, I do not find 
Among them all one day that was my 
own ! 
Fallacious hopes, desires of the unknown, 
Lamenting, loving, burning, and in 

tears, 
(For human passions all have stirred my 
mind,) 
Have held me, now I feel and know, con- 
fined 
Both from the true and good still far 
away. 
I perish day by day ; 
The sunshine fails, the shadows grow more 

dreary, 
And I am near to fall, infirm and weary. 



THE NATURE OF LOVE 

BY GUIDO GUINIZELLI 

To noble heart Love doth for shelter 

fly, 

As seeks the bird the forest's leafy shade ; 
Love was not felt till noble heart beat 

high, 
Nor before love the noble heart was made. 

Soon as the sun's broad flame 
Was formed, so soon the clear light filled the 
air ; 
Yet was not till he came : 
So love springs up in noble breasts, and 
there 
Has its appointed space, 
As heat in the bright flames finds its allotted 

place. 
Kindles in noble heart the fire of love, 
As hidden virtue in the precious stone : 
This virtue comes not from the stars 

above, 
Till round it the ennobling sun has shone ; 

But when his powerful blaze 
Has drawn forth what was vile, the stars 
impart 
Strange virtue in their rays ; 
And thus when Nature doth create the 
heart 
Noble and pure and high, 
Like virtue from the star, love comes from 
woman's eye. 



FROM THE PORTUGUESE 



SONG 



BY GIL VICENTE 

If thou art sleeping, maiden, 

Awake, and open thy door. 
'T is the break of day, and we must away v 

O'er meadow, and mount, and moor. 

Wait not to find thy slippers, 
But come with thy naked feet : 

We shall have to pass through the dewj 
grass, 
And waters wide and fleet. 



638 



TRANSLATIONS 



FROM EASTERN SOURCES 
THE FUGITIVE 

A TARTAR SONG 
I 

** He is gone to the desert land ! 
I can see the shining mane 
Of his horse on the distant plain, 
As he rides with his Kossak band ! 

Come back, rebellious one ! 
Let thy proud heart relent ; 
Come back to my tall, white tent, 
Come back, my only son ! 

" Thy hand in freedom shall 
Cast thy hawks, when morning breaks, 
On the swans of the Seven Lakes, 
On the lakes of Karajal. 

" I will give thee leave to stray 
And pasture thy hunting steeds 
In the long grass and the reeds 
Of the meadows of Karaday. 

*' I will give thee my coat of mail, 
Of softest leather made, 
With choicest steel inlaid ; 
Will not all this prevail ? " 

II 

u This hand no longer shall 
Cast my hawks, when morning breaks, 
On the swans of the Seven Lakes, 
On the lakes of Karajal. 

ts I will no longer stray 
And pasture my hunting steeds 
In the long grass and the reeds 
Of the meadows of Karaday. 

6i Though thou give me thy coat of mail, 
Of softest leather made, 
With choicest steel inlaid, 
All this cannot prevail. 

" What right hast thou, O Khan, 
To me, who am mine own, 
Who am slave to God alone, 
And not to any man ? 



God will appoint the day 

When I again shall be 

By the blue, shallow sea, 

Where the steel-bright sturgeons play. 

God, who doth care for me, 
In the barren wilderness, 
On unknown hills, no less 
Will my companion be. 

When I wander lonely and lost 
In the wind ; when I watch at night 
Like a hungry wolf, and am white 
And covered with hoar-frost ; 

; Yea, wheresoever I be, 
In the yellow desert sands, 
In mountains or unknown lands, 
Allah will care for me ! " 



III 

Then Sobra, the old, old man, — 
Three hundred and sixty years 
Had he lived in this land of tears, 
Bowed down and said, " O Khan ! 

" If you bid me, I will speak. 
There 's no sap in dry grass, 
No marrow in dry bones ! Alas, 
The mind of old men is weak ! 

" I am old, I am very old : 
I have seen the primeval man, 
I have seen the great Genghis Kha% 
Arrayed in his robes of gold. 

" What I say to you is the truth ; 
And I say to you, O Khan, 
Pursue not the star-white man, 
Pursue not the beautiful youth, 

" Him the Almighty made, 
And brought him forth of the light 
At the verge and end of the night, 
When men on the mountain prayedc 

" He was born at the break of day, 
When abroad the angels walk ; 
He hath listened to their talk, 
And he knoweth what they say. 

"Gifted with Allah's grace, 
Like the moon of Ramazan 



TO THE STORK 



639 



When it shines in the skies, O Khan, 
Is the light of his beautiful face. 

" When first on earth he trod, 
The first words that he said 
Were these, as he stood and prayed, 
* There is no God but God ! ' 

" And he shall be king of men, 
For Allah hath heard his prayer, 
And the Archangel in the air, 
Gabriel, hath said, Amen ! " 



THE SIEGE OF KAZAN 

Black are the moors before Kazan, 

And their stagnant waters smell of 
blood : 

I said in my heart, with horse and man, 
I will swim across this shallow flood. 

Under the feet of Argamack, 

Like new moons were the shoes he bare, 
Silken trappings hung on his back, 

In a talisman on his neck, a prayer. 

My warriors, thought I, are following me ; 

But when I looked behind, alas ! 
Not one of all the band could I see, 

All had sunk in the black morass ! 

Where are our shallow fords ? and where 
The power of Kazan with its fourfold 
gates ? 

From the prison windows our maidens fair 
Talk of us still through the iron grates. 

We cannot hear them ; for horse and man 
Lie buried deep in the dark abyss ! 

Ah ! the black day hath come down on 
Kazan ! 
Ah ! was ever a grief like this ? 



THE BOY AND THE BROOK 

Down from yon distant mountain height 
The brooklet flows through the village 
street ; 
A boy comes forth to wash his hands, 
Washing, yes, washing, there he stands, 
In the water cool and sweet. 



Brook, from what mountain dost thou 
come ? 

O my brooklet cool and sweet ! 
I come from yon mountain high and col<* 
Where lieth the new snow on tb'* old, 

And melts in the summer heat. 

Brook, to what river dost thou go ? 

O my brooklet cool and sweet ! 
I go to the river there below 
Where in bunches the violets grow, 

And sun and shadow meet. 

Brook, to what garden dost thou go ? 

O my brooklet cool and sweet ! 
I go to the garden in the vale 
Where all night long the nightingale 

Her love-song doth repeat. 

Brook, to what fountain dost thou go? 

O my brooklet cool and sweet ! 
I go to the fountain at whose brink 
The maid that loves thee comes to drink, 
And whenever she looks therein, 
I rise to meet her, and kiss her chin, 

And my joy is then complete. 



TO THE STORK 

Welcome, O Stork ! that dost wing 
Thy flight from the far-away ! 

Thou hast brought us the signs of Spring 
Thou hast made our sad hearts gay. 

Descend, O Stork ! descend 

Upon our roof to rest ; 
In our ash-tree, O my friend, 

My darling, make thy nest. 

To thee, O Stork, I complain, 

O Stork, to thee I impart 
The thousand sorrows, the pain 

And aching of my heart. 

When thou away didst go, 

Away from this tree of ours, 
The withering winds did blow, 

And dried up all the flowers. 

Dark grew the brilliant sky, 
Cloudy and dark and drear ; 

They were breaking the snow on high, 
And winter was drawing near. 



1*4© 



TRANSLATIONS 



From Varaca's rocky wall, 

From the rock of Varaca unrolled, 
The snow came and covered all, 

And the green meadow was cold. 

O Stork, our garden with snow 
Was hidden away and lost, 

Ind the rose-trees that in it grow 
Were withered by snow and frost. 



FROM THE LATIN 
VIRGIL'S FIRST ECLOGUE 

MELIBCEUS. 

Tityrus, thou in the shade of a spreading 
beech tree reclining 

Meditatest, with slender pipe, the Muse of 
the woodlands. 

We our country's bounds and pleasant pas- 
tures relinquish, 

We our country fly ; thou, Tityrus, stretched 
in the shadow, 

Teachest the woods to resound with the 
name of the fair Amaryllis. 

TITYRUfc. 

O Melibceus, a god for us this leisure 

created, 
For he will be unto me a god forever ; his 

altar 
Oftentimes shall imbue a tender lamb from 

our sheepfolds. 
He, my heifers to wander at large, and 

myself, as thou seest, 
On my rustic reed to play what I will, hath 

permitted. 

MELIBCEUS. 

Truly I envy not, I marvel rather ; on all 

sides 
In all the fields is such trouble. Behold, 

my goats I am driving, 
Heartsick, further away ; this one scarce, 

Tityrus, lead I ; 
For having here yeaned twins just now 

among the dense hazels, 
Hope of the flock, ah me ! on the naked 

flint she hath left them. 
Often this evil to me, if my mind had not 

been insensate, 
Oak trees stricken by heaven predicted, as 

now I remember ; 



Often the sinister crow from the holloa 

ilex predicted. 
Nevertheless, who this god may be, 

Tityrus, tell me. 

TITYRUS. 

Melibceus, the city that they call Rome; 

I imagined, 
Foolish I ! to be like this of ours, where 

often we shepherds 
Wonted are to drive down of our ewes the 

delicate offspring. 
Thus whelps like unto dogs had I known, 

and kids to their mothers, 
Thus to compare great things with smalU 

had I been accustomed. 
But this among other cities its head as far 

hath exalted 
As the cypresses do among the lissome 

viburnums. 

MELIBCEUS. 

And what so great occasion of seeing Romo 
hath possessed thee ? 

TITYRUS. 

Liberty, which, though late, looked upon 

me in my inertness, 
After the time when my beard fell whiter 

from me in shaving, 
Yet she looked upon me, and came to me 

after a long while, 
Since Amaryllis possesses and Galatea hath 

left me. 
For I will even confess that while Galatea 

possessed me 
Neither care of my flock nor hope of 

liberty was there. 
Though from my wattled folds there went 

forth many a victim, 
And the unctuous cheese was pressed for 

the city ungrateful, 
Never did my right hand return home 

heavy with money. 

MELIBCEUS. 

1 have wondered why sad thou invokedst 

the gods, Amaryllis, 
And for whom thou didst suffer the apples 

to hang on the branches ! 
Tityrus hence was absent ! Thee, Tityrus, 

even the pine trees, 
Thee the very fountains, the very copse? 

were calling. 



OVID IN EXILE 



641 



TITYRUS. 

What could I do ? No power had I to 

escape from my bondage, 
Nor had I power elsewhere to recognize 

gods so propitious. 
Here I beheld that youth, to whom each 

year, Melibceus, 
During twice six days ascends the smoke 

of our altars. * 
Here first gave he response to me soliciting 

favor : 
" Feed as before your heifers, ye boys, and 

yoke up your bullocks." 

MELIBCEUS. 

Fortunate old man ! So then thy fields 

will be left thee, 
And large enough for thee, though naked 

stone and the marish 
All thy pasture-lands with the dreggy rush 

may encompass. 
No unaccustomed food thy gravid ewes 

shall endanger, 
Nor of the neighboring flock the dire con- 
tagion infect them. 
Fortunate old man ! Here among familiar 

rivers, 
And these sacred fouuts, shalt thou take 

the shadowy coolness. 
On this side, a hedge along the neighboring 

cross-road, 
Where Hyblsean bees ever feed on the 

flower of the willow, 
Often with gentle susurrus to fall asleep 

shall persuade thee. 
Yonder, beneath the high rock, the pruner 

shall sing to the breezes, 
STor meanwhile shall thy heart's delight, 

the hoarse wood-pigeons, 
Nor the turtle-dove cease to mourn from 

aerial elm trees. 

TITYRUS. 

Therefore the agile stags shall sooner feed 

in the ether, 
And the billows leave the fishes bare on the 

sea-shore, 
Sooner, the border-lands of both overpassed, 

shall the exiled 
Parthian drink of the Soane, or the German 

drink of the Tigris, 
Than the face of him shall glide away from 

my bosom I 



MELIB02US. 

But we hence shall go, a part to the thirsty 

A fries, 
Part to Scythia come, and the rapid Cretan 

Oaxes, 
And to the Britons from all the universe 

utterly sundered. 
Ah, shall I ever, a long time hence, the 

bounds of my country 
And the roof of my lowly cottage covered 

with greensward 
Seeing, with wonder behold, — my king- 
doms, a handful of wheat-ears ! 
Shall an impious soldier possess these lands 

newly cultured, 
And these fields of corn a barbarian ? Lo, 

whither discord 
Us wretched people hath brought ! for 

whom our fields we have planted ! 
Graft, Melibceus, thy pear trees now, put in 

order thy vineyards. 
Go, my goats, go hence, my flocks so happy 

aforetime. 
Never again henceforth outstretched in my 

verdurous cavern 
Shall I behold you afar from the bushy 

precipice hanging. 
Songs no more shall I sing ; not with me, 

ye goats, as your shepherd, 
Shall ye browse on the bitter willow or 

blooming laburnum. 

TITYRUS. 

Nevertheless, this night together with me 

canst thou rest thee 
Here on the verdant leaves ; for us there 

are mellowing apples, 
Chestnuts soft to the touch, and clouted 

cream in abundance ; 
And the high roofs now of the villages 

smoke in the distance, 
And from the lofty mountains are falling 

larger the shadows. 



OVID IN EXILE 

AT TOMIS, IN BESSARABIA, NEAR THE 
MOUTHS OF THE DANUBE 

Tristia, Book III., Elegy x. 

Should any one there in Rome remembei 
Ovid the exile, 
And, without me, my name still in the 
city survive ; 



642 



TRANSLATIONS 



Tell him that under stars which never set 
in the ocean 
I am existing still, here in a barbarous 
land. 

Fierce Sarmatians encompass me round, 
and the Bessi and Getse ; 
Names how unworthy to be sung by a 
genius like mine ! 

Yot when the air is warm,, intervening Ister 
defends us : 
He, as he flows, repels inroads of war 
with his waves. 

But when the dismal winter reveals its hid- 
eous aspect, 
When all the earth becomes white with a 
marble-like frost ; 

And when Boreas is loosed, and the snow 
hurled under Arcturus, 
Then these nations, in sooth, shudder 
and shiver with cold. 

Deep lies the snow, and neither the sun nor 
the rain can dissolve it : 
Boreas hardens it still, makes it forever 
remain. 

Hence, ere the first has melted away, an- 
other succeeds it. 
And two years it is wont, in many places, 
to lie. 

And so great is the power of the North- 
wind awakened, it levels 
Lofty towers with the ground, roofs up- 
lifted bears off. 

Wrapped in skins, and with trousers sewed, 
they contend with the weather, 
And their faces alone of the whole body 



Often their tresses, when shaken, with pen- 
dent icicles tinkle, 
And their whitened beards shine with 
the gathering frost. 

Wines consolidate stand, preserving the 
form of the vessels ; 
No more draughts of wine, — pieces pre- 
sented they drink. 



Why should I tell you how all the rivers 
are frozen and solid, 
And from out of the lake frangible water 
is dug ? 

Ister, — no narrower stream than the river 
that bears the papyrus, — 
Which through its many mouths mingles 
its waves with .the deep ; 

Ister, with hardening winds, congeals its 
cerulean waters, 
Under a roof of ice winding its way to 
the sea. 

There where ships have sailed, men go on 
foot ; and the billows, 
Solid made by the frost, hoof-beats ol 
horses indent. 

Over unwonted bridges, with water gliding 
beneath them, 
The Sarmatian steers drag their barba* 
rian carts. 

Scarcely shall I be believed ; yet when 
naught is gained by a falsehood, 
Absolute credence then should to a wit- 
ness be given. 

I have beheld the vast Black Sea of ice all 
compacted, 
And a slippery crust pressing its motion- 
less tides. 

'T is not enough to have seen, I have trod^ 
den this indurate ocean ; 
Dry shod passed my foot over its upper- 
most wave. 

If thou hadst had of old such a sea as this 
is, Leander ! 
Then thy death had not been charged as 
a crime to the Strait. 

Nor can the curved dolphins uplift them- 
selves from the water ; 
All their struggles to rise merciless win. 
ter prevents ; 

And though Boreas sound with roar oi 
wings in commotion, 
In the blockaded gulf never a wave will 
there be ; 



OVID IN EXILE 



643 



And the ships will stand hemmed in by the 
frost, as in marble, 
Nor will the oar have power through the 
stiff waters to cleave. 

Fast-bound in the ice have I seen the fishes 
adhering, 
Yet notwithstanding this some of them 
still were alive. 

Hence, if the savage strength of omnipo- 
tent Boreas freezes 
Whether the salt-sea wave, whether the 
refluent stream, — 

Straightway, — the Ister made level by arid 
blasts of the North- wind, — 
Comes the barbaric foe borne on his 
swift-footed steed ; 

Foe, that powerful made by his steed and 
his far-flying arrows, 
All the neighboring land void of inhabit- 
ants ma.kes. 

Seme take flight, and none being left to de- 
fend their possessions, 
Unprotected, their goods pillage and 
plunder become ; 

Cattle and creaking carts, the little wealth 
of the country, 
And what riches beside indigent peasants 
possess. 

Some as captives are driven along, their 
hands bound behind them, 
Looking backward in vain toward their 
Lares and lands. 

Others, transfixed with barbed arrows, in 
agony perish. 
For the swift arrow-heads all have in 
poison been dipped. 

What they cannot carry or lead away they 
demolish, 
And the hostile flames burn up the inno- 
cent cots. 

Even when there is peace, the fear of war 
is impending ; 
None, with the ploughshare pressed, fur- 
rows the soil any more. 



Either this region sees, or fears a foe that 
it sees not, 
And the sluggish land slumbers in utter 
neglect. 

No sweet grape lies hidden here in the 
shade of its vine-leaves, 
No fermenting must fills and o'erflows 
the deep vats. 

Apples the region denies ; nor would 
Acontius have found here 
Aught upon which to write words for his 
mistress to read. 

N aked and barren plains without leaves or 
trees we behold here, — 
Places, alas ! unto which no happy man 
would repair. 

Since then this mighty orb lies open so 
wide upon all sides, 
Has this region been found only my 
prison to be ? 



Tristia, Book III., Elegy XII. 

Now the zephyrs diminish the cold, and the 
year being ended, 
Winter Mseotian seems longer than ever 
before ; 

And the Ram that bore unsafely the bur- 
den of Helle, 
Now makes the hours of the day equal 
with those of the night. 

Now the boys and the laughing girls the 
violet gather, 
Which the fields bring forth, nobody 
sowing the seed. 

Now the meadows are blooming with flow- 
ers of various colors, 
And with untaught throats carol the 
garrulous birds. 

Now the swallow, to shun the crime of her 
merciless mother, 
Under the rafters builds cradles and 
dear little homes ; 



644 



TRANSLATIONS 



And the blade that lay hid, covered up in 
the furrows of Ceres, 
Now from the tepid ground raises its 
delicate head. 

Where there is ever a vine, the bud shoots 
forth from the tendrils, 
But from the Getic shore distant afar is 
the vine ! 

Where there is ever a tree, on the tree the 
branches are swelling, 
But from the Getic land distant afar is 
the tree ! 

Now it is holiday there in Rome, and to 
games in due order 
Give place the windy wars of the vocifer- 
ous bar. 

Now they are riding the horses ; with light 
arms now they are playing, 
Now with the ball, and now round rolls 
the swift-flying hoop : 

Now, when the young athlete with flowing 
oil is anointed, 
He in the Virgin's Fount bathes, over- 
wearied, his limbs. 

thrives the stage ; and applause, with 
voices at variance, thunders, 
And the Theatres three for the three 
Forums resound. 

Four times happy is he, and times without 
number is happy, 
Who the city of Rome, uninterdicted, en- 
joys. 

But all I see is the snow in the vernal sun- 
shine dissolving, 
And the waters no more delved from the 
indurate lake. 

Nor is the sea now frozen, nor as before 
o'er the Ister 
Comes the Sarmatian boor driving his 
stridulous cart. 

Hitherward, nevertheless, some keels al- 
ready are steering, 
And on this Pontic shore alien vessels 
will be. 



Eagerly shall I run to the sailor, and, having 
saluted, 
Who he may be, I shall ask ; wherefore 
and whence he hath come. 

Strange indeed will it be, if he come not 
from regions adjacent, 
And incautious unless ploughing the 
neighboring sea. 

Rarely a mariner over the deep from Italy 
passes, 
Rarely he comes to these shores, wholly 
of harbors devoid. 

Whether he knoweth Greek, or whether in 
Latin he speaketh, 
Surely on this account he the more wel- 
come will be. 

Also perchance from the mouth of the 
Strait and the waters Propontic, 
Unto the steady South-wind, some one is 
spreading his sails. 

Whosoever he is, the news he can faithfully 
tell me, 
Which may become a part and an ap- 
proach to the truth. 

He, I pray, may be able to tell me the 
triumphs of Csesar, 
Which he has heard of, and vows paid 
to the Latian Jove ; 

And that thy sorrowful head, Germania, 
thou, the rebellious, 
Under the feet, at last, of the Great 
Captain hast laid. 

Whoso shall tell me these things, that not 
to have seen will afflict me, 
Forthwith unto my house welcomed as 
guest shall he be. 

Woe is me ! Is the house of Ovid in Scy- 
thian lands now ? 
And doth punishment now give me its 
place for a home ? 

Grant, ye gods, that Csesar make this not 
my house and my homestead, 
But decree it to be only the inn of my 
pain. 



INDEXES 



INDEX OF FIRST LINES 



A blind man is a poor man, and poor a blind 

man is, 616. 
A. fleet with flags arrayed, 337. 
After so long an absence, 295. 
A gentle boy, with soft and silken locks, 295. 
A handful of red sand, from the hot clime, 108. 
Ah, how short are the days! How soon the 

night overtakes us, 270. 
Ah, Love, 43. 
Ah me ! ah me ! when thinking of the years, 

637. 
Ah ! thou moon that shinest, 42. 
Ah ! what pleasant visions haunt me, 104. 
A little bird in the air, 230. 
Allah gives light in darkness, 618. 
All are architects of Fate, 108. 
All are sleeping, weary heart, 36, 37. 
All day has the battle raged, 234. 
All houses wherein men have lived and died, 

188. 
All the old gods are dead, 226. 
Am I a king, that I should call my own, 343. 
A mill-stone and the human heart are driven 

ever round, 616. 
A mist was driving down the British Channel, 

188. 
Among the many lives that I have known, 319. 
An angel with a radiant face, 629. 
And King Olaf heard the cry, 219. 
And now, behold ! as at the approach of morn- 
ing, 633. 
And thou, O River of To-morrow, flowing, 321. 
And when the kings were in the field, — their 

squadrons in array, 595. 
And whither goest thou, gentle sigh, 621. 
Annie of Tharaw, my true love of old, 614. 
An old man in a lodge within a park, 315. 
Arise, righteous Lord, 520. 
As a fond mother, when the day is o'er, 318. 
As a pale phantom with a lamp, 352. 
A soldier of the Union mustered out, 317. 
As one who long hath fled with panting breath, 

351. 
As one who, walking in the twilight gloom, 99. 
A.s the birds come in the Spring, 348. 
A.S treasures that men seek, 587. 
As unto the bow the cord is, 135. 
At anchor in Hampton Roads we lay, 201. 
At Atri, in Abruzzo, a small town, 245. 
At Drontheim, Olaf the King, 227. 
At La Chaudeau, — 'tis long since then, 631. 
At Stralsund, by the Baltic Sea, 252. 
At the foot of the mountain height, 623. 
A vision as of crowded city streets, 315. 
Awake ! arise ! the hour is late, 359. 
Awake, O north-wind, 368. 



A wind came up out of the sea, 199. 

A youth, light-hearted and content, 613. 

Barabbas is my name, 400. 
Baron Castine of St. Castine, 259. 
Beautiful lily, dwelling by still rivers, 287. 
Beautiful valley ! through whose verdant 

meads, 325. 
Becalmed upon the sea of Thought, 349. 
Behold ! a giant am I, 347. 
Bell! thou soundest merrily, 611. 
Beside the ungathered rice he lay, 20. 
Between the dark and the daylight, 200. 
Beware ! the Israelite of old, who tore, 23. 
Black are the moors before Kazan, 639. 
Black shadows fall, 184. 
Blind Bartimeus at the gates, 18, 391. 
Build me straight, O worthy Master, 99. 
Burn, evening hearth, and waken, 288. 
By his evening fire the artist, 110. 
By the shore of Gitche Gumee, 162. 

Can it be the sun descending, 139. 

Centuries old are the mountains, 304. 

Christ to the young man said : Yet one thing 

more, 113. 
Clear fount of light ! my native land on high, 

593. 
Come from thy caverns dark and deep, 305. 
Come, my beloved, 367. 
Come, O Death, so silent flying, 597. 
Come, old friend ! sit down and listen, 67. 
Come to me, O ye children, 199. 

Dark is the morning with mist ; in the narrow 

mouth of the harbor, 345. 
Dead he lay among his books, 342. 
Dear child ! how radiant on thy mother's knee, 

60. 
Don Nuno, Count of Lara, 594. 
Dost thou see on the rampart's height, 341. 
Dowered with all celestial gifts, 298. 
Down from yon distant mountain height, 639. 
Downward through the evening twilight, 119. 

Each heart has its haunted chamber, 294. 
Even as the Blessed, at the final summons, 634. 
Evermore a sound shall be, 303. 
Every flutter of the wing, 302. 
Eyes so tristful, eyes so tristful, 597. 

Far and wide among the nations, 155. 
Filled is Life's goblet to the brim, 18. 
Flooded by rain and snow, 304. 
Flow on, sweet river ! like his verse, 357. 
Forms of saints and kings are standing, 615. 



648 



INDEX OF FIRST LINES 



For thee was a house built, 618. 

Forth from the ourtain of clouds, from the tent 

of purple and scarlet, 182. 
Forth upon the Gitche Gumee, 130. 
Four by the clock ! and yet not day, 354. 
Four limpid lakes, — four Naiades, 351. 
From the outskirts of the town, 295. 
From this high portal, where upsprings, 630. 
Full of wrath was Hiawatha, 151. 

Gaddi mi fece : il Ponte Vecchio sono, 318. 

Garlands upon his grave, 324. 

Gentle Spring! in sunshine clad, 621. 

Gently swaying to and fro, 302. 

Give me of your bark, O Birch-tree, 128. 

Gloomy and dark art thou, O chief of the 

mighty Omahas, 64. 
Glove of black in white hand bare, 597 
God sent his messenger the rain, 462. 
God sent his Singers upon earth, 112. 
Good night ! good night, beloved, 42. 
Guarding the mountains around, 305. 

Hadst thou stayed, I must have fled, 257. 

Half of my life is gone, and I have let, 68. 

Hark, hark, 621. 

Haste and hide thee, 303. 

Hast thou seen that lordly castle, 611. 

Have I dreamed ? or was it real, 186. 

Have you read in the Talmud of old, 200. 

He is dead, the beautiful youth, 291. 

He is gone to the desert land ! 638. 

Here in a little rustic hermitage, 322. 

Here lies the gentle humorist, who died, 318. 

High on their turreted cliffs, 304. 

Honor be to Mudjekeewis ! 116. 

How beautiful is the rain, 59. 

How beautiful it was, that one bright day, 289. 

How cold are thy baths, Apollo ! 344. 

How I started up in the night, in the night, 617. 

How many lives, made beautiful and sweet, 291. 

How much of my young heart, O Spain, 335. 

How strange it seems ! These Hebrews in their 

graves, 191. 
How strange the sculptures that adorn these 

towers, 292. 
How the Titan, the defiant, 300. 
How they so softly rest, 610. 

I am poor and old and blind, 328. 

I am the God Thor, 218. 

I enter, and I see thee in the gloom, 292. 

If perhaps these rhymes of mine should sound 

not well in strangers' ears, 616. 
If thou art sleeping, maiden, 52, 637. 
I have a vague remembrance, 295. 
I have read, in some old, marvellous tale, 7. 
I hear along our street, 628. 
I heard a brooklet gushing, 610. 
I neard a voice, that cried, 111. 
I heard the bells on Christmas Day, 289. 
I heard the trailing garments of the Night, 4. 
I know a maiden fair to see, 611 . 
I lay upon the headland-height, and listened, 

287. 
I leave you, ye cold mountain chains, 630. 
I lift mine eyes, and all the windows blaze, 293. 



I like that ancient Saxon phrase, which calls, 

17. 
In Attica thy birthplace should have been, 314. 
In broad daylight, and at noon, 191. 
In dark fens of the Dismal Swamp, 21. 
In his chamber, weak and dying, 58. 
In his lodge beside a river, 160. 
In Mather's Magnalia Christi, 187. 
In Ocean's wide domains, 22. 
In St. Luke's Gospel we are told, 346. 
Intelligence and courtesy not always are core- 

bined, 616. 
In that building long and low, 195. 
In that desolate land and lone, 336. 
In the ancient town of Bruges, 54. 
In the convent of Drontheim, 235. 
In the heroic days when Ferdinand, 236. 
In the long, sleepless watches of the night, 323 
In the market-place of Bruges stands the be. 

fry old and brown, 54. 
In the old churchyard of his native town, 348. 
In the Old Colony days, in Plymouth the lana 

of the Pilgrims, 165. 
In the valley of the Pegnitz, where across 

broad meadow-lands, 57. 
In the Valley of the Vire, 192. 
In the village churchyard she lies, 189. 
In the workshop of Hephaestus, 298. 
In those days, said Hiawatha, 145. 
In those days the Evil Spirits, 147. 
Into the city of Kambalu, 247. 
Into the darkness and the hush of night, 348. 
Into the open air John Alden, perplexed and 

bewildered, 171. 
Into the Silent Land, 612. 

I pace the sounding sea-beach and behold, 315. 
I said unto myself, if I were dead, 317. 
I saw, as in a dream sublime, 62. 
I saw the long line of the vacant shore, 317. 
I see amid the fields of Ayr, 344. 
I shot an arrow into the air, 68. 
Is it so far from thee, 342. 
I sleep, but my heart awaketh, 366. 
I stand again on the familiar shore, 314. 
I stand beneath the tree, whose branches shade, 

321. 
I stood on the bridge at midnight, 63. 
I stood upon the hills, when heaven's wide arch, 

10. 
Italy ! Italy ! thou who 'rt doomed to wear, 

635. 
I thought this Pen would arise, 344. 
It is autumn ; not without, 351. 
It is the Harvest Moon ! On gilded vanes, 320. 
I trust that somewhere and somehow, 249. 
It was Einar Tamberskelver, 233. 
It was fifty years ago, 199. 
It was Sir Christopher Gardiner, 284. 
It was the schooner Hesperus, 14. 
It was the season, when through all the land, 

240. 

Janus am I ; oldest of potentates, 349. 
Joy and Temperance and Repose, 616. 
Just above yon sandy bar, 104. 
Just in the gray of the dawn, as the mists up- 
rose from the meadows, 174. 



INDEX OF FIRST LINES 



649 



King Christian stood by the lofty mast, 607. 
King Ring with his queen to the banquet did 

fare, 599. 
King Solomon, before his palace gate, 264. 

Labor with what zeal we will, 203. 

Lady, how can it chance — yet this we see, 

636. 
Laugh of the mountain! — lyre of bird and 

tree ! 593. 
tearless are the trees ; their purple branches, 

195. 
t him who will, by force or fraud innate, 

631. 
_!:t nothing disturb thee, 597. 
Like two cathedral towers these stately pines, 

348. 
Listen, my children, and you shall hear, 207. 
Little sweet wine of Jurancon, 632. * 
Live I, so live I, 616. 

Lo ! in the painted oriel of the West, 69. 
Longing already to search in and round, 634. 
Lord, what am I, that, with unceasing care, 

593. 
Loud he sang the psalm of David, 22. 
Loud sang the Spanish cavalier, 48. 
Loud the angry wind was wailing, 226. 
Loudly the sailors cheered, 231. 
Love, love, what wilt thou with this heart of 

mine ? 632. 
Lull me to sleep, ye winds, whose fitful sound, 

317. 
Lutheran, Popish, Calvinistic, all these creeds 

and doctrines three, 616. 

Maiden ! with the meek, brown eyes, 19. 

Man-like is it to fall into sin, 616. 

Meanwhile the stalwart Miles Standish was 
marching steadily northward, 178. 

Month after month passed away, and in Au- 
tumn the ships of the merchants, 180. 

Mounted on Kyrat strong and fleet, 338. 

Much it behoveth, 620. 

My beloved is white and ruddy, 366. 

My soul its secret has, my life too has its mys- 
tery, 632. 

My undefined is but one, 367. 

Neglected record of a mind neglected, 360. 

Never shall souls like these, 307. 

Never stoops the soaring vulture, 156. 

Nine sisters, beautiful in form and face, 319. 

No more shall I see, 600. 

Northward over Drontheim, 230. 

No sound of wheels or hoof -beat breaks, 325. 

iNot fashioned out of gold, like Hera's throne, 
297. 

Nothing that is shall perish utterly, 537. 

Nothing the greatest artist can conceive, 635. 

Nothing was heard in the room but the hurry- 
ing pen of the stripling, 166. 

Not without fire can any workman mould, 635. 

Now from all King Olaf's farms, 221. 

Nowhere such a devious stream, 328. 

K< the zephyrs diminish the cold, and the 
year being ended, 643. 

T lf **w Time throws off his cloak again, 621. 



O Caesar, we who are about to die, 310. 

O curfew of the setting sun ! O bells of Lynn ! 

290. 
O'er all the hill-tops, 617. 
faithful, indefatigable tides, 361. 
Of Edenhall, the youthful Lord, 613. 
Of Prometheus, how undaunted, 185. 
Often I think of the beautiful town, 194. 
Oft have I seen at some cathedral door, 292. 
Oft I remember those whom I have known, 

356. 
O gift of God ! perfect day, 202. 
O gladsome light, 418. 

O hemlock tree ! O hemlock tree ! how faith- 
ful are thy branches, 014. 
Oh, give me back the days when loose and free, 

63(3. 
Oh, how blest are ye whose toils are ended, 

616. 
Oh let the soul her slumbers break, 587. 
Oh that a Song would sing itself to me, 322. 
Oh, the long and dreary Winter, 158. 
Olaf the King, one summer morn, 223. 
Olger the Dane and Desiderio, '265. 
O little feet ! that such long years, 203. 
O Lord ! who seest, from yon starry height, 593. 
O lovely river of Yvette, 337. 
Once into a quiet village, 110. 
Once more, once more, Inarime\ 336. 
Once on a time, some centuries ago, 275. 
Once the Emperor Charles of Spain, 189. 
Once upon Iceland's solitary strand, 323. 
One Autumn night, in Sudbury town, 204. 
One day, Haroun Al Raschid read, 339. 
One hundred years ago, and something more, 

255. 
One morning, all alone, 415. 
One summer morning, when the sun was hot, 

209. 
On King Olaf's bridal night, 224. 
On St. Savon's tower, commanding, 337. 
On sunny slope and beechen swell. 12. 
On the cross the dying Saviour, 015. 
On the gray sea-sands, 232. 
On the green little isle of Inchkenneth, 339. 
On the Mountains of the Prairie, 115. 
On the shores of Gitche Gumee, 132. 
On the top of a mountain I stand, 48. 
O precious evenings ! all too swiftly sped, 112. 
O River of Yesterday, with current swift, 321. 
O star of morning and of liberty, 293. 
O sweet illusions of Song, 294. 
Othere, the old sea-captain, 197. 
O traveller, stay thy weary feet, 360. 
Our God, a Tower of Strength is He, 463. 
Out of childhood into manhood, 121. 
Out of the bosom of the Air, 202. 
O weathercock on the village spire, 347. 
O ye dead Poets, who are living still, 319. 

Padre Francisco, 29. 

Pentecost, day of rejoicing, had come. The 

church of the village, 600. 
Peradventure of old, some bard in Ionian 13' 

lands, 354. 
Pleasant it was, when woods were green, 3. 
Poet ! I come to touch thy lance with mine, 32? 



t>5° 



INDEX OF FIRST LINES 



Quand les astres de Noel, 293. 
Queen Sigrid the Haughty sat proud and aloft, 
220. 

Rabhi Ben Levi, on the Sabbath, read, 214. 

Rio Verde, Rio Verde, 594. 

Rise up, my love, my fair one, 366. 

River ! that in silence windest, 17. 

River, that stealest with such silent pace, 315. 

Robert of Sicily, brother of Pope Urbane, 215. 

Sadly as some old mediaeval knight, 358. 
Safe at anchor in Drontheim bay, 229. 
Saint Augustine ! well hast thou said, 186. 
St. Botolph's Town ! Hither across the plains, 

321. 
San Miguel de la Tumba is a convent vast and 

wide, 596. 
See, the fire is sinking low, 289. 
She dwells by Great Kenhawa's side, 21. 
She is a maid of artless grace, 596. 
Shepherd ! who with thine amorous, sylvan 

song, 592. 
Short of stature, large of limb, 225. 
Should any one there in Rome remember Ovid 

the exile, 641. 
Should you ask me, whence these stories, 113. 
Simon Danz has come home again, 334. 
Sing, O Song of Hiawatha, 143. 
Sir Oluf he rideth over the plain, 608. 
Sleep, comrades, sleep and rest, 359. 
Slowly, slowly up the wall, 440. 
Slowly the hour-hand of the clock moves round, 

320. 
So from the bosom of darkness our days come 

roaring and gleaming, 361. 
Soft through the silent air descend the feathery 

snow-flakes, 361. 
Solemnly, mournfully, 69. 
Some day, some day, 597. 

Something the heart must have to cherish, 618. 
Somewhat back from the village street, 67. 
So the strong will prevailed, and Alden went on 

his errand, 168. 
Southward with fleet of ice, 105. 
Spake full well, in language quaint and olden, 

6. 
Speak ! speak ! thou fearful guest, 13. 
Spring is coming, birds are twittering, forests 

leaf, and smiles the sun, 599. 
Stars of the summer night, 26. 
Stay, stay at home, my heart, and rest, 340. 
Still through Egypt's desert places, 356. 
Strike the sails ! King Olaf said, 233. 
Svend Dyring he rideth adown the glade, 282. 
Sweet as the tender fragrance that survives, 341. 
Sweet babe ! true portrait of thy father's face, 

622. 
Sweet chimes ! that in the loneliness of night, 

354. 
Sweet faces, that from pictured casements lean, 

322. 
Sweet the memory is to me, 326. 

Taddeo Gaddi built me. I am old, 318. 
Take them, O Death ! and bear away, 113. 
Tell me not, in mournful numbers, 5. 



The Ages come and go, 522. 

The Archbishop, whom God loved in high d* 

gree, 622. 
The battle is fought and won, 280. 
The brooklet came from the mountain, 296. 
The ceaseless rain is falling fast, 324. 
The course of my long life hath reached at last, 

636. 
The day is cold, and dark, and dreary, 17. 
The day is done, and the darkness, 64. 
The day is ending, 65. 

The doors are all wide open ; at the gate, 315. 
The guests were loud, the ale was strong, 222. 
The holiest of all holidays are those, 322. 
The lights are out, and gone are all the guests, 

308. 
The Lord descended from above, 466. 
The night is come, but not too soon, 5. 
The nuns*in the cloister, 42. 
The old house by the lindens, 109. 
The pages of thy book I read, 20. 
The panting City cried to the Sea, 356. 
The peasant leaves his plough afield, 594. 
There is a quiet spirit in these woods, 11. 
There is a Reaper, whose name is Death, 5. 
There is no flock, however watched and tended, 

107. 
There sat one day in quiet, 609. 
The rising moon has hid the stars, 16. 
The rocky ledge runs far into the sea, 106. 
There was a time when I was very small, 608. 
The rivers rush into the sea, 610. 
The sea awoke at midnight from its sleep, 316. 
The sea hath its pearls, 615. 
These are the Voices Three, 305. 
These words the poet heard in Paradise, 357. 
The shades of night were falling fast, 19. 
The Slaver in the broad lagoon, 22. 
The summer sun is sinking low, 353. 
The sun is bright, — the air is clear, 16. 
The sun is set ; and in his latest beams, 316. 
The tide rises, the tide falls, 347. 
The twilight is sad and cloudy, 105. 
The wind is rising ; it seizes and shakes, 407. 
The world is full of care, 484. 
The young Endymion sleeps Endymion's sleep, 

316. 
This is the Arsenal. From floor to ceiling, 56. 
This is the forest primeval. The murmuring 

pines and the hemlocks, 71. 
This is the place. Stand still, my steed, 55. 
This song of mine, 196. 
Thora of Rimol ! hide me ! hide me, 220. 
Thorberg Skafting, master-builder, 228. 
Thou ancient oak ! whose myriad leaves are 

loud, 318. 
Thou brooklet, all unknown to song, 630. 
Thou comest, Autumn, heralded by the rain, 69. 
Though the mills of God grind slowly, yet they 

grind exceeding small, 616. 
Thou mighty Prince of Church and State, 629. 
Thou Royal River, born of sun and shower c 

320. 
Thou that from the heavens art, 617. 
Three Kings came riding from far away, 339. 
Three miles extended around the fields of the 

homestead, on three sides, 598. 



INDEX OF FIRST LINES 



651 



Three Silences there are : the first of speech, 
320. 

Thus for a while he stood, and mused by the 
shore of the ocean, 177. 

Thus sang the Potter at his task, 329. 

Thus, then, much care-worn, 618. 

'T is late at night, and in the realm of sleep, 
291. 

Tityrus, thou in the shade of a spreading beech- 
tree reclining, 640. 

To gallop off to town post-haste, 632. 

To noble heart Love doth for shelter fly, 637. 

Torrent of light and river of the air, 316. 

Turn, turn, my wheel ! Turn round and round, 
329. 

Tuscan, that wanderest through the realms of 
gloom, 69. 

'Twas Pentecost, the Feast of Gladness, 612. 

Two angels, one of Life and one of Death, 190. 

Two good friends had Hiawatha, 127. 

Under a spreading chestnut-tree, 15. 

Under Mount Etna he lies, 201. 

Under the walls of Monterey, 193. 

Until we meet again ! That is the meaning, 

354. 
Up soared the lark into the air, 327. 

Viswamitra the Magician, 339. 
Vogelweid the Minnesinger, 66. 

Warm and still is the summer night, 333. 

Welcome, my old friend, 65. 

Welcome, O Stork ! that dost wing, 639. 

We sat within the farm-house old, 106. 

What an image of peace and rest, 346. 

What is this I read in history, 352. 

What phantom is this that appears, 345. 

What say the Bells of San Bias, 360. 

What should be said of him cannot be said, 637. 

What the Immortals, 302. 



When Alcuin taught the sons of Charlemagne, 

266. 
When by night the frogs are croaking, kindle 

but a torch's fire, 616. 
When descends on the Atlantic, 103. 
Whene'er a noble deed is wrought, 197. 
When I compare, 359. 
When I remember them, those friends of mine, 

314. 
When Mazarvan the Magician, 295. 
When the dying flame of day, 10. 
When the hours of Day are numbered, 6. 
When the prime mover of my many sighs. <>.">(). 
When the summer fields are mown, 296. 
When the warm sun, that brings, 9. 
When winter winds are piercing chill, 10. 
Where are the Poets, unto whom belong, 359. 
Whereunto is money good, 616. 
Whilom Love was like a fire, and warmth and 

comfort it bespoke, 616. 
White swan of cities, slumbering in thy nest, 319. 
Whither, thou turbid wave, 609. 
Who love would seek, 61(5. 
Why dost thou wildly rush and roar, 358. 
Will ever the dear days come back again, 631. 
Will then, Duperrier, thy sorrow be eternal ? 

628. 
With favoring winds, o'er sunlit seas, 342. 
With snow-white veil and garments as of flame, 

292. 
With what a glory comes and goes the year, 9. 
Witlaf, a king of the Saxons, 110. 
Worn with speed is my good steed, 52. 

Ye sentinels of sleep, 305. 

Yes, the moment shall decide, 306. 

Yes, the Year is growing old, 8. 

Yet not in vain, O River of Yesterday, 321. 

Ye voices, that arose, 12. 

You shall hear how Hiawatha, 124. 

You shall hear how Pau-Puk-Keewis, 137. 149. 



INDEX OF TITLES 



The cities of major works and of general divisions are set in small capitals, 



A.bbot Joachim, The, 407. 

Aftermath, 296. 

Afternoon in February, 85. 

Allah, 618. 

Amain, 326. 

Ancient Spanish Ballads, 594. 

Angel and the Child, The, 629. 

Annie of Tharaw, 614. 

April Day, An, 9. 

Arrow and the Song, The, 68. 

Arsenal at Springfield, The, 56. 

Artist, The, 635. 

At La Chaudeau, 631. 

Auf Wiedersehen, 354. 

Autumn: "Thou comest, Autumn, heralded by the 

raiu," 69. 
Autumn : " "With what a glory comes and goes the 

year," 9 
Autumn Within, 351. 
Avon, To the, 357. 
Azrael, 264. 

Ballad of Carmilhan, The, 252. 

Ballad of the French Fleet, A, 337. 

Ballads and Other Poems, 13. 

Baron of St. Castine, The, 259. 

Barrages, 630. 

Bayard Taylor, 342. 

Beatrice, 634. 

Becalmed, 349. 

Beleaguered City, The, 7. 

Belfry op Bruges and other Poems, The, 54. 

Belfry of Bruges, The, 54. 

Belisarius, 328. 

Bell of Atri, The, 245. 

Bells of Lynn, The, 290. 

Bells of San Bias, The, 360. 

Beowulf's Expedition to Heort, 618. 

Beware, 611. 

Bird and the Ship, The, 610. 

Birds of Killingworth, The, 240. 

Birds op Passage, 184. 

Birds of Passage, 184. 

Black Knight, The, 612. 

Blessed are the Dead, 616. 

Blind Bartimeus, 18. 

Blind Girl of Castel-Cuille, The, 623. 

Book of Sonnets, A, 314. 

Boston, 321. 

Boy and the Brook, The, 639. 

Bridge, The, 63. 

Bridge of Cloud, The, 288. 

Broken Oar, The, 323. 

Brook, The, 593. 

Brook and the Wave, The, 296. 

Brooklet, To my, 630. 

Building of the Skip, The, 99.- 

Builders, The, 108. 

Burial of the Minnisink, 12. 

Burial of the Poet, The, 348. 

Cadenabbia, 325. 
Canzone, 637. 
Carillon, 54. 



Castle-Builder, The, 295. 

Castle by the Sea, The, 611. 

Castles in Spain, 335. 

Catawba Wine, 196. 

Celestial Pilot, The, 633. 

Challenge, The, 295. 

Chamber over the Gate, The, 342. 

Changed, 295. 

Channiug, To William E., 20. 

Charlemagne, 265. 

Charles Sumner, 324. 

Chaucer, 315. 

Chaudeau, At La, 631. 

Child Asleep, The, 622 

Child, To a, 60. 

Childhood, 608. 

Children, 199. 

Children of the Lord's Supper, The, SOC. 

Children's Crusade, The, 352. 

Children's Hour, The, 200. 

Chimes, 354. 

Christmas Bells, 289. 

Christmas Carol, 628. 

Christus : A Mystery, 362. 

Chrysaor, 104. 

City and the Sea, The, 356. 

Cobbler of Hagenau, The, 249. 

Come, O Death, so silent flying, 597. 

Consolation, 628. 

Coplas de Manrique, 587. 

Courtship of Miles Standish, The, 165. 

Cross of Snow, The, 323. 

Cumberland, The, 201. 

Curfew, 69. 

Danish Song-Book, To an Old, 65. 

Dante : " Tuscan, that wanderest through the realms ol 

gloom," 69. 
Dante : " What should be said of him cannot be said Si 

637. 
Daybreak, 199. 
Day is Done, The, 64. 
Daylight and Moonlight, 191. 
Day of Sunshine, A, 202. 
Dead, The, 610. 

Death of Archbishop Turpin, 622. 
Decoration Day, 359. 
Dedication (Michael Angelo), 537. 
Dedication (The Seaside and the Fireside), 98 
Delia, 341. 

Descent of the Muses, The, 319. 
Discoverer of the North Cape, The 197. 
Divina Commedia, 292. 
Divine Tragedy, The, 363. 
Drinking Song, 67. 
Driving Cloud, To the, 64. 
Dutch Picture, A, 334. 

Earlier Poems, 9. 
Elected Knight, The, 608. 
Elegiac, 345. 
Elegiac Verse, 354. 
Eliot's Oak, 318. 
Elizabeth, 270. 



INDEX OF TITLES 



653 



Emma and Eginhard, 266. 

Emperor's Bird's-Nest, The, 189. 

Emperor's Glove, The, 337. 

Enceladus, 201. 

Endymion, 16. 

Epimetheus, or the Poet's Afterthought, 186. 

Evangeline : A Tale of Acadie, 71. 

Evening Star, The, 69. 

Excelsior, 19. 

Eyes so tristful, eyes f o tristful, 597. 

Falcon of Ser Federigo, The, 209. 

Fata Morgana, 294. 

Fiftieth Birthday of Agassiz, 199. 

Fire, 635. 

Fire of Driftwood, The, 106. 

Flower-de-Luce, 287. 

Flower-de-Luce, 287. 

Flowers, 6. 

Footsteps of Angels, 6. 

Forsaken, 618. 

Four by the Clock, 354. 

Fcur Lakes of Madison, The, 351. 

Four Princesses at Wilna, The, 322. 

Fragment, A, 359. 

Fragments, 360. 

Friar Lubin, 632. 

Frithiof's Farewell, 600. 

Frithiof's Homestead, 598. 

Frithiof's Temptation, 599. 

From my Arm-Chair, 343. 

From the Cancioneros, 597. 

Fugitive, The, 638. 

Galaxy, The, 316. 

Gaspar Becerra, 110. 

Giles Corey of the Salera Farirs, 495. 

Giotto's Tower, 291. 

Gleam of Sunshine, A, 55. 

Glove of Black in White Hand Bare, 597. 

Goblet of Life, The, 18. 

God's-Acre, 17. 

Golden Legend, The, 408. 

Golden Milestone, Tlie, 195. 

Good Part that shall not be taken away, The, 21. 

Good Shepherd, The, 592. 

Grave, The, 618. 

Hanging op the Crane, The, 308. 

Happiest Land, The, 609. 

Haroun Al Raschid, 339. 

Harvest Moon, The, 320. 

Haunted Chamber, The, 294. 

Haunted Houses, 188. 

Hawthorne, 289. 

Helen of Tyre, 345. 

Hemlock Tree, 614. 

Hermes Trismegistus, 356. 

Herons of Elmwood, The, 333. 

Holidays, 322. 

Hymn for my Brother's Ordination, 113. 

Hymn of the Moravian Nuns of Bethlehem, 10. 

Hymn to the Night, 4. 

Image of God, The, 593. 

Inscription on the Shanklin Fountain, 360. 

In the Churchyard at Cambridge, 189. 

In the Churchyard at Tarrytown, 318. 

In the Harbor, 349. 

Iron Pen, The, 344. 

Italy, To, 635. 

It is not always May, 16. 

Jewish Cemetery at Newport, The, 191. 
John Endicott, 465. 
Judas Maccabeus, 523. 
Jugurtha, 344. 



Kambalu, 247. 

Keats, 316. 

Keramos, 329. 

Killed at the Ford, 291. 

King Christian, 607. 

King Robert of Sicily, 215. 

King Trisanku, 339. 

King Witlaf's Drinking-Horn, 110. 

Ladder of St. Augustine, The, 186. 

Lady Wentworth, 255. 

Leap of Roushan Beg, The, 338. 

Legend Beautiful, The 257. 

Legend of the Cross-Bill, Tlie, 615. 

Legend of Rabbi Ben Levi, The, 214. 

L'Envoi (Ultima Thule). 348. 

L'Envoi (Voices of the Night), 12. 

Lighthouse, The, 106. 

Light of Stars, The, 5. 

Loss and Gain, 359. 

Luck of Edenhall, The, 613. 

Mad River, 358. 

Maiden and "Weathercock, 347. 

Maidenhood, 19. 

Martin Luther, 463. 

Masque of Pandora, The, 297. 

Meeting, The, 295. 

Memories, 356. 

Mezzo Cammin, 68. 

Michael Angelo: A Fragment, 537. 

Midnight Mass for the Dying Year, g 

Milton, 315. 

Monk of Casal-Maggiore, The, 275. 

Monte C )ssino, 325. 

Moods, 322. 

Moonlight, 352. 

Morituri Salutamus, 310. 

Mother's Ghost, The, 282. 

My Books, 358. 

My Cathedral, 348. 

My Lost Youth, 194. 

My Secret, 632. 

Nameless Grave, A, 317. 

Native Land, The, 593. 

Nature, 318. 

Nature of Love, The, 637. 

Neglected Record of a Mind Neglected, 

New England Tragedies, The, 465. 

Night, 348. 

Noel, 293. 

Norman Baron, The, 58. 

Nuremberg, 57. 

Occupation of Orion, The, 62. 

O Faithful, Indefatigable Tides, 361. 

Old Age, 636. 

Old Bridge at Florence, The, 318. 

Old Clock on the Stairs, The, 67. 

Old St. David's at Radnor, 346. 

Oliver Basselin, 192. 

Open "Window, The, 109. 

Ovid in Exile, 641. 

Palingenesis, 287. 

Parker Cleaveland, 319. 

Passages from Frithiof's Saga. 5£_. 

Paul Revere's Ride, 207. 

Pegasus in Pound, 110. 

Phantom Ship, Tho, 187. 

Poems on Slavery, 20. 

Poet and his Songs, The, 348. 

Poetic Aphorisms, 616. 

Po°ts, The, 319. 

Poet's Calendar, The, 349. 

Ponte Vecchio di Firenze, II, 318. 



^54 



INDEX OF TITLES 



Possibilities, 359. 


Dante, 69. 


Prelude (Voices of the Night), 3. 


Dante, 637. 


President Garfield, 357. 


Dedication to Michael Angelo, 537. 


Prometheus, or the Poet's Forethought, 185. 


Descent of the Muses, The, 319. 


Psalm of Life, A, 5. 


Divina Commedia, 292. 




Eliot's Oak, 318. 


Quadroon Girl, The, 22. 


Evening Star, The, 69. 


Quiet Life, A, 631. 


Fire, 635. 




Four Princesses at Wilna, The, 322. 


Rain in Summer, 59. 


Galaxy, The, 316. 


Rainy Day, The, 17. 


Giotto's Tower, 291. 


Reaper and the Flowers, The, 5. 


Good Shepherd, The, 592. 


Remorse, 617. 


Harvest Moon, The, 320. 


Resignation, 107. 


Holidays, 322. 


Return of Spring, The, 621. 


How strange the sculptures that adorn these towers, 


Revenge of Rain-in-the-Face, The, 336. 


292. 


Rhyme of Sir Christopher, The, 284. 


I enter, and I see thee in the gloom, 292. 


River Charles, To the, 17. 


I lift mine eyes, and all the windows blaze, 293. 


River Rhone, To the, 320. 


Image of God, The, 593. 


River Yvette, To the, 337. 


In the Churchyard at Tarrytown, 318. 


Robert Burns, 344. 


Italy, To, 635. 


Rondel : " Love, love, what wilt thou with this heart 


Keats, 316. 


of mine?" 632. 


Memories, 356. 


Ropewalk, The, 195. 


Mezzo Cammin, 68. 




Milton, 315. 


Saga op King Olaf, The, 218. 


Moods, 322. 


St. John, 522. 


Mrs. Kemble's Readings from Shakespeare, 0%^ 


St. John's, Cambridge, 321. 


112. 


Sandalphon, 200. 


My Books, 357. 


Sand of the Desert in an Hour-Glass, 108. 


My Cathedral, 348. 


San Miguel, the Convent, 596. 


My Secret, 632. 


Santa Filomena, 197. 


Nameless Grave, A, 317. 


Santa Teresa's Book-Mark, 597. 


Native Land, The, 593. 


Scanderi»eg, 280. 


Nature, 318. 


Sea hath its Pearls, The, 615. 


Night, 348. 


Seaside and the Fireside, The, 99. 


Oft have I seen at some Cathedral Door, 292. 


Seaweed, 103. 


Old Age, 636. 


Secret of the Sea, The, 104. 


Old Bridge at Florence, The, 318. 


Sermon of St. Francis, The, 327. 


O Star of Morning and of Liberty ! 293. 


Seven Sonnets and a Canzone, 635. 


Parker Cleaveland, 319. 


Shadow, A, 317. 


Poets, The, 319. 


Shakespeare, 315. 


Ponte Vecchio di Firenze, 11, 318. 


Siege of Kazan, The, 639. 


Possibilities, 358. 


Sifting of Peter, The, 348. 


President Garfield, 357. 


Silent Love, 616. 


Quiet Life, A, 631. 


Singers, The, 112. 


Return of Spring, The, 621. 


Sir Humphrey Gilbert, 105. 


River Rhone, To the, 320. 


Skeleton in Armor, The, 13. 


St. John's, Cambridge, 321. 


Slave in the Dismal Swamp, The, 21. 


Shadow, A, 317. 


Slave's Dream, The, 20. 


Shakespeare, 315. 


Slave Singing at Midnight, The, 22. 


Sleep, 317. 


Sledge-Ride on the Ice, A, 599. 


Sound of the Sea, The, 316. 


Sleep, 317. 


Summer Day by the Sea, A, 316. 


Snow-Flakes, 202. 


Three Friends of Mine, 314. 


So from the Bosom of Darkness, 361. 


Three Silences of Molinos, The, 320. 


Soft through the Silent Air, 361. 


Tides, The, 317. 


Some Day, Some Day, 597. 


To-Morrow, 291. 


Something left Undone, 203. 


To-Morrow, 593. 


Song : And whither goest thou, gentle sigh, 621. 


Two Rivers, The, 320. 


Song : Hark, hark ! 621. 


Venice, 319. 


Song : If thou art sleeping, maiden, 637. 


Victor and Vanquished, 351. 


Song : She is a maid of artless grace, 596. 


Vittoria Colonna, To, 636. 


Song : Stay, stay at home, my heart, 340. 


Vittoria Colonna, To, 636. 


Song op Hiawatha, The, 113. 


Wapentake, 323. 


Song of the Bell, 611. 


Will ever the dear Days come back again, 631. 


Song of the Silent Land, 612. 


With Snow-white Veil and Garments as of Flame, 


Songo River, 328. 


292. 


Sonnets. 


Woodstock Park, 322. 


Artist, The, 635. 


Youth and Age, 635. 


Autumn, 69. 


Soul's Complaint against the Body, The, 620. 


Boston, 321. 


Sound of the Sea, The, 316. 


Broken Oar, The, 323. 


Spanish Student, The, 24. 


Brook, The, 593. 


Spirit of Poetry, The, 11. 


Burial of the Poet, The, 348. 


Spring, 621. 


Chaucer, 315. 


Statue over the Cathedral Door, The, 615. 


Chimes, 354. 


Stork, To the, 639. 


Cross of Snow, The, 323. 


Summer Day by the Sea, A, 316. 



INDEX OF TITLES 



655 



Sundown, 353. 

Sunrise on the Hills, 10. 

Suspiria, 113. 

Syuibolum Apostolorum, 406. 

Tales of a Wayside Inn, 204. 

TegneVs Drapa, 111. 

Terrace of the Aigalades, On the, 630. 

Terrestrial Paradise, The, C>34. 

Three Friends of Mine, 314. 

Three Kings, The, 339. 

Three Silences of Molinos, The, 320. 

Tide Rises, the Tide Falls, The, 347. 

Tides, The, 317. 

To a Child, 60. 

To an Old Danish Song-Book, 65. 

To Cardinal Richelieu^ 629. 

To Italy, 634. 

To-Morrow, 291. 

To-Morrovv (Manaiia), 593. 

To my Brooklet, 630. 

Torquemada, 236. 

To the Avon, 357. 

To the Driving Cloud, 64. 

To the River Charles, 17. 

To the River Rhone, 320. 

To the River Yvette, 337. 

To the Stork, 639. 

To William E. Channing, 20. 

To Vittoria Colonna, 636. 

To Vittoria Colonna, 636. 

Tbanslations, 582. 

Travels by the Fireside, 324. 

Twilight, 105. 

Two Angels, The, 190. 

Two LockB of Hair, The, 613. 



Two Rivers, The, 320. 

Ultima Thule, 342. 

Venice, 319. 

Victor and Vanquished, 351. 
Victor Galbraith, 193. 
Vida de San Millan, 595. 
Village Blacksmith, The, 15. 
Virgil's First Eclogue, 640. 
Vittoria Colonna, JBJ6. 
Vittoria Colonna, To, 636. 
Vittoria Colonna, To, i'.'.JG. 
Voices of the Night, 3. 
Vox Populi, 295. 

Walter von der Vogelweid, 66. 

Wanderer's Night-Songs, 617. 

Wapentake, 323. 

Warden of the Cinque Ports, The, 188. 

Warning, The, 23. 

Wave, the, 609. 

Weariness, 203. 

White Czar, The, 341. 

Whither, 610. 

Will ever the dear Days come back again, 631 

Windmill, The, 347. 

Wind over the Chimney, The, 2S9. 

Wine of Jurancon, The, 632. 

Witnesses, The, 22. 

Woods in Winter, 10. 

Woodstock Park, 322. 

Wraith in the Mist, A, 339. 

Wreck of the Hesperus, The, 1&. 

South and Age* 636. 







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